Sue Kim filmed the group, while they were partying over Rugby Sevens weekend before she entered a tenant's room filming him in bed. Photo / Stock image / 123RF
Sue Kim filmed the group, while they were partying over Rugby Sevens weekend before she entered a tenant's room filming him in bed. Photo / Stock image / 123RF
A man who was sleeping off jetlag while his flatmates celebrated the Rugby Sevens woke to find his property manager filming him in bed.
“I woke up to my bedroom door swinging open and her yelling my name and a camera pointing at me,” Hamilton renter Sam Fullerton-Smith told NZME.
Real estate agent Sue Kim was acting as a pseudo-property manager for her friends Jee Yeon Lee and Jun Hyuk-Lee, teaching the couple how to manage the Huntington property.
Her actions while assuming the role, deemed to be one of a property manager at the rental, have now been condemned by the Tenancy Tribunal, which ruled Kim’s conduct was “unlawful”.
Adjudicator Tania Harris recently declined Kim’s bid for a re-hearing, one sought by the woman after she was ordered to pay the tenants $1250 in compensation for breaching their privacy and right to quiet enjoyment.
Kim had opened a bedroom cupboard and drawer during an inspection in November last year, finding “some cannabis”.
On another occasion, she entered the house without notice while the tenants threw a two-day party over Sevens weekend. She filmed the group, who were dressed as cavemen for the popular celebration, before entering Fullerton-Smith’s room where she filmed him in bed.
During the hearing in March, Kim didn’t deny this had happened, instead arguing she was entitled to do so “because she was the owner, she could do what she liked”.
Kim told NZME she believed her actions did not breach the Residential Tenancies Act and described the party incident as an “emergency”, therefore entitling her to enter the property without 24 hours’ notice.
She said it was normal to open cupboards at a tenancy inspection and feels like her case wasn’t given proper consideration by the tribunal.
“We are not going (to) pay” Kim said. “We won’t stop here, we will keep going they never say sorry.”
The Hamilton flatmates said they weren't perfect but were entitled to their privacy while living in the rental. Photo / Hamilton City Council
However adjudicator Harris said the situation wasn’t an emergency and Kim had other options available to her without entering the premises, and looking in drawers and cupboards was a breach of privacy.
“It is in the public interest that owners and agents know of and comply with the requirements of the RTA [residential tenancies act],” Harris said.
“I find both these events were significant and amounted to harassment of the tenants.
“I find they have committed an unlawful act.”
Kim breached the RTA, and Harris said the property manager didn’t appear to know what was required.
Fullerton-Smith lived with his sister Lucy and two friends, Ella Petursson and Max Cumpstone in a flat they loved. He admitted they had been visited by noise control in the past, but were on good terms with their neighbours.
But when their privacy was breached, and the flatmates moved out, the group took their concerns to the Tenancy Tribunal.
Kim had helped the owners purchase and manage the rental for a year with minimal payment and at the end of 2022 they assigned the job of rental management to her.
Kim told the tribunal she was managing the tenancy for her friends, the owners, but wasn’t a property manager – instead, her work was done to train owner Jee Yeon Lee to manage the property.
It was noted there was no management authority naming her as the property manager and she was not paid for her work.
Compensation was awarded to the tenants in March, but no compensation has been paid. Footage from the party, stored on a USB, was to be deleted as ordered by Harris.
Harris said in a recent decision the request for a rehearing from Kim could not go ahead because she failed to establish a substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice had occurred.
Fullerton-Smith, speaking to NZME on behalf of the group, said they were on good terms with their neighbours, and weren’t the only ones in Hamilton that weekend having a party.
“We understand we’re not perfect people and we did do things wrong but our privacy is a big issue.”
Hazel Osborne is an Open Justice reporter for NZME and is based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington. She joined the Open Justice team at the beginning of 2022, previously working in Whakatāne as a court and crime reporter in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.
