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Auckland's Leah Bosley still feels the stress months after being moved out of her rental home with just 42 days' notice and hopes the new Government follows through on its promise to bring in changes.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced during last year's election campaign that the 42-day vacate periods would be abolished in favour of 90-day periods.
A discussion paper on how to work this into the Residential Tenancies Act is due out this year with legislation expected in Parliament in 2019, Housing Minister Phil Twyford says.
But reform can't come quick enough for Bosley. She had been living with horses, cows and a dog in Karaka on Auckland's rural southern edge earlier this year when she was given six weeks to move out.
The stress of finding another home suitable for her furry family in Auckland's tight market was horrible, she said.
"I don't have a family, I don't have parents or brothers or sisters or anybody - I was facing being homeless," Bosley, who is aged in her late 40s, said.
"No one should be given 42 days' notice. It is just not enough time financially, mentally and physically to actually find somewhere."
Abolishing the 42-day period is part of a broader push to make the housing market fairer for renters and first-home buyers at a time when the nation is short an estimated 70,000 homes, the Government says.
Currently, 42-day vacate periods can only be given when a person buys a home and wants it for family members, vacant possession or their employees to live in.
In all other cases, 90 days' notice must be given.
Other proposed Government changes include preventing landlords from evicting tenants without giving a reason why, limiting rent increases to once a year, abolishing letting fees, and bringing in a so-called foreign buyer ban.
But New Zealand Property Investors Federation executive officer Andrew King said investors would be punished by the changes at a time when investment was needed to build more homes.
He said owner-occupiers - who represent about two-thirds of all homeowners and a large share of prospective buyers - often wanted to quickly move into newly bought homes and could be put off by having to wait 90 days for tenants to leave the property.
This could in turn limit the number of people willing to buy a home, he said.
"Therefore, it probably restricts the price you are going to get for a sale," King said.
But with a select committee this week recommending watering down the Government's foreign buyer ban to allow foreign investors to buy into large-scale apartment or hotel complexes, Bosley hopes there is no backtracking on abolishing 42-day notice periods.
Leah Bosley has made a complaint with the Tenancy Tribunal against her agent Barfoots after she was evicted from her rental property in Karaka. Photo/Jason Oxenham.
The home Bosley was forced out of was purchased by a Chinese citizen, who she believed held a restricted visitor visa to New Zealand that only allowed them to stay in 12-week blocks.
She questioned how the law allowed someone who wasn't a resident in the country to claim the home was to be their primary residence and thus give 42 days' notice to vacate.
And while she was "extremely lucky" to find a new rental nearby, it is $400 a week more expensive than her previous home and included a $1000 letting fee among the $4200 in payments needed to secure it.
It is also on just a one-year contract, meaning she may have to move all over again in a matter of months.
"All this started in January – we are now at June. I'm still upset, I'm still affected financially," she said.
