KEY POINTS:
Housing New Zealand has been accused of bungling the eviction of a tenant whose family is blamed for terrorising an Auckland street and making life unbearable for residents.
An attempt to evict tenant Sharon Salt from her Range View Rd, Owairaka, home was dismissed by the Tenancy Tribunal
this week.
Housing NZ has asked the Crown Solicitor for advice on whether to appeal. A decision is expected next week.
The tribunal said Housing NZ lacked solid evidence to back its claims that family members were disturbing the peace, comfort and privacy of other residents in the street.
Neighbours claimed Mrs Salt's teenage sons - members of a local gang - and their associates were responsible for disorderly behaviour, vandalism, assaults, property damage and intimidation of neighbours.
Tenancy Tribunal adjudicator Amanda Elliot said she could not evict Mrs Salt based on the evidence put forward by Housing New Zealand and police at a hearing last month.
"I would have expected there to have been evidence of recent incidents and not accounts of events that did not even take place this century," she said.
She asked Housing NZ to provide specific breaches of the tenancy, but "I was left with a vague notion that it was just the general behaviour over the years. I do not consider vague behaviour ... over a decade is sufficient for me to end Mrs Salt's tenancy."
Tenancy specialist Scotney Williams said Housing NZ needed up-to-date evidence and specific details of problems that had happened within the past four to five months.
The evidence in the Salt case was "too historical" and the corporation had ended up with "egg on their face".
"I think they had this long list of things that have happened but they haven't catalogued them well and they were far too historical and mis-matched - bits and pieces here and there."
National Party Housing spokesman Phil Heatley described the hearing as a "comedy of errors" and accused Housing NZ of bungling the eviction.
Housing NZ chief executive Lindsay McTurk said the corporation had been confident of its case and put forward its best evidence.
"We had received numerous and sustained complaints from residents over a period of time and that built up to a point where we believed we had sufficient evidence, and that was put forward by seven neighbours and four policemen, in addition to one of our local housing services managers."
Mrs Salt was served with a 10-day breach of tenancy notice in January but Housing NZ moved to evict her in May.
Dr McTurk said Housing NZ continued to receive complaints "on a confidential basis" from late January to April.
"We also received information from police as the months went on and by April we were able to say we believe there was a breach occurring here which was incapable of remedy."
She said Housing NZ would review the decision and see what lessons could be learned from the case.
Prime Minister Helen Clark said she was very concerned.
"I felt the adjudicator gave very little regard to how stressful it's been living in the street with this family for quite a long time and that concerns me."
She has asked Housing NZ for a report on the case.
"I think it's clear that a tenant like this must be put on very clear notice that this sort of behaviour which destabilises a neighbourhood and causes terrific distress just isn't on and won't be tolerated.
"I think [Housing NZ] can learn from this as well. It needs to be onto things earlier, it needs to document them better."
Housing Minister Chris Carter thought the adjudicator had not paid enough regard to the distress of other neighbours on the street when making the decision.
He said Dr McTurk had promised to document complaints more fully from now on, including anonymous complaints.
The findings
Tenancy Tribunal adjudicator Amanda Elliott criticised Housing New Zealand for a lack of specific evidence about complaints made about the Salt family since the beginning of this year.
Ms Elliott found that Mrs Salt had complied with the breach notice issued in January and that any other suggested breaches were "too vague".
Housing NZ said it continued to receive numerous anonymous complaints about the Salt family this year but Ms Elliott heard about just one, a "non specific" call in May from an anonymous neighbour who said she felt intimidated by teenage boys who were calling her "nasty names".
"It appears from the record that no direct contact was made with [Mrs Salt] about this matter, except for this application [to evict] being filed."
Ms Elliott also said she found it interesting that police did not make any contact with Housing NZ about the Salt address until last December.
She said police had a genuine concern about some of Mrs Salt's sons: "This is evident by the large number of police officers who need to attend the property even for relatively routine matters such as bail checks."
However, Ms Elliott found those visits did not appear to have disrupted the peace, comfort and privacy of neighbours.
She said police evidence appeared to show there had been 85 call-outs to the Salt address in the six months to May. But in reality there had been 85 incidents reported for the whole of Range View Rd.
Twenty incidents related to Mrs Salt's address but only nine of them were made after the breach notice was issued in January, Ms Elliott said.
Ms Elliott accepted that Mrs Salt's sons were involved in a local youth gang, DMS (Drugs Money Sex), and had criminal records. "However, it is also apparent that they are being dealt with, within the appropriate forum of the criminal justice system."
Residents who accused the Salt family of terrorising the street had given "genuine accounts of the unease with their neighbourhood" but some seemed to draw no distinction between Mrs Salt's property and an adjacent park.
Ms Elliott concluded that Housing NZ did not consider the complaints so severe as to ask for immediate termination of the tenancy at the time they happened. "I do not consider that it is ever appropriate to terminate a tenancy due to a perceived attitude without the necessary evidence to back that attitude up."
