What was the outcome of Tenancy Tribunal case 4860340?

The tribunal order states: The relationship between the parties is not one of landlord and tenant and is not

How much money was awarded in case 4860340?

Verified claim lines are listed on this page.

What type of tenancy dispute was case 4860340?

The dispute type was not classified.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 4860340?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/10461398-Tenancy_Tribunal_Order.pdf.

What was the outcome of Tenancy Tribunal case 4860340?

The tribunal order states: The relationship between the parties is not one of landlord and tenant and is not

How much money was awarded in case 4860340?

Verified claim lines are listed on this page.

What type of tenancy dispute was case 4860340?

The dispute type was not classified.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 4860340?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/10461398-Tenancy_Tribunal_Order.pdf.

875 Ferry Road, Woolston, Christchurch 8023 Tenancy Tribunal Case 4860340 — Tenancy dispute

Order

The relationship between the parties is not one of landlord and tenant and is not subject to the Residential Tenancies Act 1986
The Tenancy Tribunal has no jurisdiction to deal with this dispute.

Reasons

Both parties attended the hearing.
The respondent attended by telephone.
Telephone calls to Mr Kavanagh went to voice mail on both attempts.
The Tribunal was informed by another applicant that Mr Kavanagh had moved to Australia. No notice of this had been provided to the Tribunal and no arrangements had been put in place to allow for attendance from an overseas number.
Mr Kavanagh was informed of the hearing room contact details (from overseas) by another applicant and was given an opportunity to contact the hearing room. No contact was received, and the hearing went ahead with the consent of Mr Burt and Mr MacDonald who attended by telephone and confirmed that they could speak on behalf of all applicants.
A telephone call to the number provided for Mr Beaumont went to voicemail.
Mr Kavanagh contacted the hearing room after the hearing had ended and explained that he had been unable to call an overseas number due to the nature of his phone plan.
He was informed that the hearing had concluded and that he would receive an order in due course.
The purpose of this hearing was to determine the jurisdiction of this Tribunal to hear the substantial claims.
The issue is whether the parties were landlord and tenant under a room-by- room tenancy as claimed by the applicants or flatmates as claimed by the respondent. Background
The tenancy property is owned by the respondent’s parents as trustees of a family trust (“the owners”).
A copy of the tenancy agreement between the owners and the respondent was provided to the Tribunal.
The initial agreement was said to have been signed in 2017 but was undated. An “addenda” was signed on 8 September 2020 in “addition to your previous agreement” when the respondent’s ex-partner was released from the tenancy agreement and the respondent became the sole tenant.
The addenda provides that the respondent is not able to sublet the property in whole or part without the landlord’s consent but may have up to four flatmates.
There is a suggestion that the tenant “may want to get rent two weeks in advance, from flatmates, to cover possible damages which they can use as final rent if no damage has occurred.”
No rent amount is specified in the agreement, and it specifically excludes any area other than the main house and garden.
An area known as “the sleepout” later became part of the tenancy premises although it was originally excluded from this written agreement.
The applicants all moved to the property at different times.
At least two found out about the vacant rooms via another occupant (“L”) who has since moved out.
The respondent seemed to have little to do with the recruitment of some applicants except for providing details of his bank account for bond and rent payments (which included outgoings). He did not vet them or approve them in any obvious way.
The parties provided many pages of evidence including pages of messages from a chat group called “flatties” to which they all belonged.
It is clear from this chat group that there were disputes between the applicants themselves from the early stages of their occupancy.
There were also disputes between them and L who had moved from the main house to the sleepout as he and his partner were expecting (and then had) a baby.
The respondent had very little, if any, input into these discussions at the beginning and while L was still at the property.
The respondent gave evidence that his parents had renovated the sleepout and made it more self-contained in order that it could be occupied by L and his partner as they were expecting a baby. It was at this time that the sleepout seems to have become part of the respondent’s tenancy agreement with his parents although no written confirmation of this was provided.
The sleepout was reasonably self-contained except for clothes washing facilities but there was no evidence L and his family had not been able to use all the shared facilities in the main house or that their status had altered following their move to the sleepout.
Judge Broardmore provides a general description of a flatmate arrangement in Musson v Dobreski and others (DC Lower Hutt, CIV 2006 032 36, 16/02/22 at [22]) By “flatmates” I understand a co-operative arrangement whereby, in a functional sense, all occupants are on [the] same footing in that they have exclusive occupation of their own rooms and shared use and occupation of common areas such as kitchens.
Every case is different and must be judged on its own facts, but this a useful starting point.
To my mind, it is clear that, at the beginning when the respondent lived in the main house, the arrangement between the applicants (excluding Mr Beaumont who was not yet present) and the respondent was one of flatmates.
They all had the same access to common areas and exclusive right to their own rooms. There were no locks on doors, but it is clear from the messages that they considered their rooms their own private spaces.
The applicants paid rent to Mr Mathieson, and he was obliged to pay rent to the owners. He often referred to overdue rent and remarked that he could not continue to carry others who did not always pay on time.
When L moved out of the sleepout, the respondent moved in. This was some ten months after some of the applicants had moved into the house. Mr Beaumont then moved into the room in the house vacated by the respondent.
Once the respondent moved into the sleepout the applicants suggested that the relationship changed to one of landlord and tenant under a room-by-room tenancy.
It is difficult to see why that may be the case. When L lived in the sleepout, he was still considered a flatmate.
Nothing changed in terms of the respondent’s ability to access the common areas of the house.
A room-by-room tenancy is where the landlord does not live at the property and each tenant has their own tenancy agreement with the landlord. Tenants share common areas of the property.
There was no suggestion by any party that the respondent had to give notice to the applicants when he wished to enter the main house. On the contrary, the attending applicants made it clear that the respondent continued to have free access to the common areas in the main house after he moved into the sleepout.
There were ongoing issues with rubbish build-up and removal. This had been an issue from when L was at the property and was a significant cause of concern between the respondent and the applicants before he left the property.
The relationship began to deteriorate further when the applicants suspected the respondent’s dog of spreading scabies to the occupants.
Evidence was provided that the parties made a temporary arrangement to restrict the respondent (and primarily his dog) from going through the main house. Regular access was necessary, and had previously been freely available, to allow the dog to have access to the garden.
This adds to the view that the respondent had no power over the situation greater than the other occupants who now attempted to actively prevent him from using the common areas and the garden.
The applicants made it clear that they considered this a co-operative arrangement pending resolution of the scabies issue and that it was not intended to be permanent.
The relationship, as might be expected, continued to deteriorate.
The respondent’s parents attempted to access the property to complete maintenance and were prevented by the occupants. Police were involved and the relationship breakdown was seemingly irretrievable from there.
There is nothing before the Tribunal to suggest that the respondent was a landlord. Indeed, by the end, he seemed to have significantly less power in the relationship than the applicants did.
The applicants preventing him from taking his dog through the property to use the garden caused distress to the dog and undoubtedly caused distress to the respondent.
There were two other dogs at the property and also a significant build-up of rubbish and, unsurprisingly, vermin.
The respondent (and the owners) tried to help resolve the situation with regards to the possible scabies. It was quite some time later that one of the occupants was officially diagnosed with scabies and earlier evidence had pointed just as strongly to an infestation of fleas or bedbugs.
The applicants were free to leave the property with limited or no notice (and had done so before the hearing) and had no obligation to the respondent for rent for any period after they left the property.
I find that the respondent is the tenant of the owners, and the applicants were his flatmates.
Therefore, the Tenancy Tribunal is not the appropriate forum to determine this dispute.

Tenancy Tribunal case 4860340 — Tenancy dispute at 875 Ferry Road, Woolston, Christchurch 8023

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Tenancy Tribunal case 4860340 — Tenancy dispute at 875 Ferry Road, Woolston, Christchurch 8023

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