Photo: 123RF

A rental home in a luxury Auckland suburb was in such poor condition that a tenant fell through a rotten floor, prompting a Tenancy Tribunal to order the landlord to pay $5000.

Four tenants had been paying $900 a week for a property in Kohimarama since September 2021, but at a hearing earlier last month they claimed their landlord had failed to maintain the property and the house did not meet health and safety requirements.

In November 2022, tenants informed the property manager that the dining room, French doors, and door frame were rotting and the floor tiles were cracked. One of the doors did not open properly. The property manager said he forwarded the tenants’ email to the landlord.

“It appears that the owner did not propose any solution and there is no evidence that any repair work was being carried out at this stage,” said tribunal judge Joon Yi.

In May 2023, tenants informed the property manager that floor tiles had fallen in the dining room and the laundry room door had become difficult to unlock and open.

The tenants emailed the property manager 12 days later, asking if anyone would come look at the problems.

Then one of the tenants fell through the rotten floor in the dining room. They contacted the property manager on May 15 and sent photographic evidence.

The property manager responded that he had arranged for a contractor to visit the site on May 20.

Four days later, the tenants emailed the property manager again, saying the house had become “even more” damp and cold because of the hole in the floor. The tenants tried to cover the hole, but without much success.

Tenants asked about the possibility of reducing the rent due to the current situation.

The landlord did not offer any rent reductions or refunds. The landlord said an insurance claim had been filed and the repair work would be done once the claim was processed.

On June 2, the tenants sent the landlord a 13-day notice asking for the hole to be repaired. On June 18, the landlord apologized through the property manager and said a contractor would do a temporary repair.

On June 20, the tenants gave a 28-day notice to terminate their lease. Four days later, the landlord’s contractor glued a piece of wood over the hole as a temporary solution.

Yi said the landlord “failed to respond appropriately” to concerns raised by tenants, to the point where one of them fell to the floor.

“I believe the landlord failed to maintain the premises in a reasonable state of repair. I believe the landlord committed a tort,” Yi said.

“The landlord deliberately neglected to send anyone to check for issues between November 2022 and May 2023. The landlord only sent a contractor when the issue became more serious.

“Even then, the hole remained uncovered for 40 days until it was covered with a piece of wood.”

The tenants were seeking tens of thousands of dollars in damages, but Yi said they failed to prove that the entire house was uninhabitable, that the landlord forced them to move and bore the moving costs, or that there was damage to the furniture.

Yi ordered the property owner to pay $2,000 in compensation for the collapsed dining room floor and another $3,000 in compensation for non-economic damages.

– This story was originally published by New Zealand Herald.