Published tribunal order
Tenancy Tribunal case 9058365 — Tenancy dispute in Auckland Central, Auckland
Decided 11 Mar 2025 · Published 11 Mar 2025 · Application 9058365
Landlord favoured
- Unit Titles
Order
- Yadong Li, Linna Wang must pay Body Corporate 338356 $43,778.22 immediately, calculated as follows: DescriptionsApplicantRespondent Costs – sections 124 ad 127 Unit Titles Act 2010 $36,821.47 Costs incurred since hearing on 3 December 2024 $6,956.75 Total award$43,778.22 Total payable by Respondent to Applicant $43,778.22
Reasons
- On 3 December 2024, the Tribunal issued its decision on the body corporate’s claim for outstanding remedial levies. It awarded the body corporate $55,213.53 for the outstanding levies ($54,713.53) and the filing fee ($500.00). No claim for interest was made.
- Counsel for the body corporate sought costs of $36,821.47 which included the preparation for and appearance at the High Court proceedings that preceded the application.
- I invited submissions on costs from counsel since I had reservations about awarding costs incurred in another Court.
- Counsel has provided submissions addressing that issue. She has referred to a relevant decision where the Tribunal decided a similar issue, previous High Court proceedings and costs incurred pursuing an order for sale – see Body Corporate 85172 v Leeanne Frances Fisher [2024] NZTT 904724/UT.
- Counsel has also referred the Tribunal to the decision of Judge Harrison in Body Corporate 331094 v Zane Donald Smith [2015] NZDC 17745 as authority for the recovery of legal fees both under section 127 of the Unit Titles Act 2010 (UTA) and under section 124 UTA.
- The Court noted in that decision that other members of a body corporate who have paid their levies should not be expected to pay the costs of the recovery of unpaid levies from defaulting unit owners.
- Here, the costs incurred, and the costs now claimed, are due entirely to the actions of the defaulting (former) unit owners. It would be unfair and unjust were the other unit owners to be called upon to pay a portion of those costs by way of an additional levy.
- Case law has established that the Tribunal must order that the reasonable costs incurred by the body corporate in recovering outstanding levies, objectively assessed, be paid by a defaulting unit owner. I am satisfied that the costs ordered above are reasonable. While the amount sought is high, the claim has had a protracted history starting in 2017 when matters first came before the Tribunal.
- Counsel has provided time and costs records to support the claim for costs. The Tribunal is not required to forensically examine the records; it simply need be persuaded that the claim for costs, viewed objectively, is reasonable. It is.
- The body corporate has incurred additional costs since the hearing preparing submissions on costs to address concerns the Tribunal raised. Its claim for those costs is objectively reasonable as well.
- The former owners will therefore pay the body corporate costs of $43,778.22 in total compromising the costs incurred in the recovery of the outstanding remedial levies (that required High Court proceedings to obtain an order for sale) as well as the preparation of and appearance on the complex issues that comprised the Tribunal application, and additional costs incurred for the preparation of submissions requested by the Tribunal.