The Government has announced proposed changes to overhaul residential tenancy laws.
The proposed changes will see no-cause tenancy terminations come to an end, a limit to rent increases to once a year and will also address the ‘rent bidding’ issues.
The government’s four proposed reforms for the over thirty-year-old Residential Tenancies Act 1986 are:
- Improve tenants’ security and stability while protecting landlords’ interests;
- Ensure the law appropriately balances the rights and responsibilities of tenants and landlords and helps renters feel at home;
- Modernise the legislation so it can respond to the changing trends in the rental market; and
- Improve the quality of boarding houses and the accountability of boarding house landlords.
Housing Minister Phil Twyford addressed current renting issues at a press conference in Wellington saying that the government wants to make a “generational reset of the way we rent…because, at the moment, it’s a miserable and pretty punishing existence for many renters...”
“It’s not about picking a new system off the shelf,” said Mr Twyford.
“We’ve got to design something that works here and now for us in New Zealand.”
A summary document of the current renting rules and proposed reform and a discussion document on reform proposals is now available on MBIE’s website, with comments due by 5pm, 21 October 2018.