The Tenancy Services Compliance and Investigations Team monitor and enforce compliance with the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (the Act).
How the Team Works
Where ongoing breaches are identified, the team uses a number of interventions and enforcement activities to make sure landlords comply with their obligations under the Act. This includes holding landlords to account and requiring them to change their behaviour where necessary.
Landlords and property management companies are thoroughly investigated to ensure compliance with the Act. In addition to addressing alleged breaches, proactive visits are conducted to assess their business processes and systems.
What the team investigates
Some of the areas the team looks into are:
• If there are breaches that cause the condition of the premise(s) to be a significant risk to the health or safety of vulnerable people or groups of people
• If the landlord has committed a serious breach or has persistently breached the Act
• If the landlord’s actions risk undermining public confidence in the administration of tenancy law
The team can't intervene in every issue that is brought to their attention.
In some cases, people will be given specific advice or directed to the website to help them solve the issue themselves. This may include advice on issuing a notice to remedy or applying to the Tenancy Tribunal. The team have a range of compliance tools to ensure landlords are meeting their obligations. These include (but are not limited to) formal warnings, enforceable undertakings, improvement notices and infringement notices. In the most serious cases, the team may decide to take proceedings against a landlord in the Tenancy Tribunal.
If someone thinks there has been a serious or ongoing breach of the Act, they are encouraged to report the issue through the Tenancy Services web site for investigation by the TCIT team.
Harcourts Experience
Harcourts property managers frequently receive requests from TCIT to provide them with documents relating to a new tenancy. In addition to auditing these documents TCIT also perform on-site audits of the business processes and systems. They may also conduct random checks on a selection of files to ensure compliance, including reviewing how we respond to maintenance requests from tenants and the actions taken by the property manager and landlord. The TCIT conducts on-site visits to rental properties to assess compliance with maintenance, insulation, smoke alarms, and healthy homes standards.
If they discover that the property is not compliant, landlords maybe in breach of their responsibilities under the Act and TCIT has the authority to take action, such as issuing an infringement fee and/or a work order to ensure the property becomes compliant.
Our commitment to following regulations and providing quality service is key.
Source: https://www.tenancy.govt.nz/about-tenancy-services/compliance-team/