When landlords and tenants feud

Landlord problems? Troublesome tenants refusing to pay up? You're not alone.

Each year more than 200 warring Wairarapa landlords and tenants battle out testy disputes in the Tenancy Tribunal.

Figures released from the Government's Building and Housing group document over 1200 Tribunal applications made in Wairarapa in the five years to September.

Most of the applications, which cost $20 to make, were for unpaid rent, though problems with property damage, abandonment, termination breaches and even assault were also listed.

Others involved bond disputes, reduction of fixed-term tenancies and compensation requests.

One case even related to "quiet enjoyment" - where landlords failed to provide suitable notice to tenants before entering a rental property.

Wairarapa Community Law Centre said most tenant enquiries related to bond issues and property damage.

These included disagreements around whether damage "has been arguably done or not done to the premises or whether it is sufficiently tidy enough to warrant the bond being released by the landlord", manager Murray Henderson said.

The New Zealand Property Investors Federation said launching a Tribunal application was a last resort for most landlords. However, if a large amount of money was owed, or significant damage had occurred to a property, landlords were often left with no choice, president Andrew King said.

In a recent example, a landlord couple had a dwelling behind their house trashed by renters, he said. "They were on quite a low income and decided to rent that out to help supplement their income." The two tenants fell behind in their rent and then "smashed it all up".

"[The landlord couple] lost the rental income and there was $3000 worth of damage."

Mr King said only one of the tenants, who was a beneficiary, could be located after the incident.

After the case went to the tribunal, the tenant was ordered to contribute $20 a week via payments through Work and Income.

"It was going to take three years to pay off the damage, not even the rent arrears."

The majority of last year's Wairarapa Tenancy Tribunal applications (113) resulted in hearings and orders.

A Building and Housing spokeswoman said hearings were held at a courthouse, presided over by an adjudicator and parties normally represented themselves.

Just under a third of applications (67) went to "mediation".

Resolutions from these sessions were legally binding.

Compensation for up to $50,000, or work totalling this amount, can be ordered by the Tribunal in both mediations and hearings.

The remaining Wairarapa applications (30) were "withdrawn", figures showed.

Although figures show the number of applications is dropping, there were still more than 40,000 applications made to the Tenancy Tribunal last year.

Notable cases included 22 listed as "squatter or unauthorised occupation" and 4 for "discrimination".

Most of last year's national applications resulted in tribunal orders About a third went to mediation and the rest were withdrawn.