Barry Soper: Don't rent your property to a diplomat

Opinion

COMMENT:

A warning to all New Zealand landlords - don't rent your property to a diplomat.

Now that may sound counterintuitive, a diplomat's job is to be diplomatic.

It's their job to respect the country they've been assigned to, to respect the people who live in it and to abide by the laws of the land.

The last expectation isn't all all what diplomats have to do, they don't have to, even for a traffic infringement a car with DC licence plates can park where they like, and the driver can break the speed limit with gay abandon and if they have a few too many at one of the many cocktail functions they attend, they can blow the bag with impunity.

Diplomats are different to the rest of us, they can hide behind an archaic ruse of diplomatic immunity which means they can pretty well get away with most things as Wellington second in charge of the European Union mission Eva Tvarozkova has discovered.

This young woman rented a ritzy, $1500 a week house off landlord Matt Ryan.

He admits he thought he was on to a pretty good thing, regular rent and a reliable tenant - wrong.

Tvarozkova broke her lease early and has been living in an even posher, and more expensive place on Wellington's harbour.

She left owing Ryan around $20,000, rent arrears and damage to his property.

He took her to the Tenancy Tribunal, well she didn't turn up, she doesn't have to.

Our Foreign Affairs was brought in after the Tribunal found against her, awarding Ryan what was rightfully his.

They claimed immunity on her behalf after a second hearing was called and the earlier finding against her was ditched.

She was lawyered up, so too was Foreign Affairs and Matt Ryan also hired a lawyer for the second hearing.

Again Tvarozkova didn't put in an appearance.

They've now found, in a reserved decision, that immunity does apply to her, even though in a Canadian court, they decided otherwise in a virtually identical case.

The Canadians felt renting a private property was a personal transaction.

The whole case would have cost us, the taxpayer, more than she ever owed to Ryan and no doubt would have left the Europeans out of pocket.

Ryan's the worst off though, he fought against a law that was surely never intended to give someone immunity from rent arrears, or from damaging a property, and the ridiculous law won.

He rightfully feels frustrated and so too should every landlord.

Well, they've now been warned.