Everyone’s a tenancy expert with AI tools. Yeah, right.
Wednesday, 24 June 2026
AI tools are being weaponised by everyone in the tenancy eco-system, and it’s causing major headaches when people don’t have the relevant knowledge to back it up, a tenancy expert says.
Tenancy Advocacy director Sarina Gibbon said AI has been showing up at the Tenancy Tribunal and in tenancy disputes in all the worst ways.
That might be 100 page “legal submissions” of copy-paste nonsense, or emails laundered through ChatGPT that assert greater expertise than they have, she said.
“AI is an amplifier of capabilities, so if people make use of it with poor understanding of tenancy law and decisions it simply amplifies their incompetencies.”
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While AI tools could be used very effectively by someone with sound knowledge of tenancy law, the reality was that most people did not meet that bar, she said.
There are growing concerns about the application of AI in tenancy cases, and earlier this month it was reported the Tribunal was drafting guidelines on AI use in response.
It’s not just the tenancy sector where AI misuse is a problem. A recent Supreme Court decision highlighted the risks of relying on AI in legal proceedings, while in April the Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman issued a warning about using AI for complaints.
Nor is it only a problem in New Zealand’s justice system. Across the ditch, Australia’s Fair Work Commission reported the use of AI had contributed to an estimated 70% increase in its workload over a three-year period, for example.
On the New Zealand front, a spokesperson for the Tenancy Services and the Tenancy Tribunal said both divisions had seen an increase in the apparent use of AI in the materials that they received.
“In some instances, the apparent AI-generated material has added significantly to the length and complexity of the claims, although in others the material has been concise, relevant and assisted the Tribunal in identifying and understanding the relevant issues.”
The Tribunal received nearly 30,000 applications last year, most of which had no obvious AI component, so it was difficult to determine the overall impact of increased AI use on the Tribunal as a whole, they said.
“The impact of the use of AI is something we will keep an eye on, and the Tribunal will issue guidance for the use of AI in Tribunal matters in the coming months.”
AI misuse common across the tenancy eco-system
While a recently reported Tribunal case focused on tenant misuse of AI, plenty of property managers and landlords were utilising AI tools badly too, Gibbon said.
“Four times the amount of Tribunal applications come from landlords as from tenants, with 7395 applications from landlords versus 1361 from tenants in the first quarter of this year.
“So to suggest it is solely tenants using AI in their submissions that is creating huge workload problems is a bit disingenuous. The Tribunal is very much a landlords’ forum.”
AI was being weaponised by everyone from people bringing meritless claims to the Tribunal to commercial interests trying to scare landlords into getting a property manager, she said.
“There are landlords using AI to essentially bully property managers into doing, or not doing, things the landlord doesn’t want to do, such as declining to pay required repairs and maintenance costs.”
Meanwhile, on social media and forums like Reddit, laypeople were putting themselves out there as experts on the RTA, and giving bad tenancy advice using language which was clearly AI generated, she said.
“These people genuinely think they are civic warriors fighting the good fight against evil landlords, but they are actually creating a dangerous resource base for people who rely on it for advice.”
AI was impacting across the tenancy eco-system so it was necessary to consider it more broadly than just at the Tribunal, where the adjudicators were not being fooled by excessive AI screeds, Gibbon said.
“It needs to be accepted that proper legal advice and support from experienced people in the field has even more of a place than it used to.”
AI just can’t beat human interaction
Zac Snelling, who is Ray White group head of property management, said they were seeing a huge increase in all parties using AI, and in his view it was being overused.
While AI was a useful tool for tenants and landlords to understand their rights and obligations and to frame communications, it could also overcomplicate issues and create false expectations, he said.
“Our business is all about relationships and communication, and if either party approaches an issue by handing over an AI-generated claim of 200 pages detailing 40 things that were done wrong, the other party will shut down.
“The best approach to conflict and to resolving disputes is to talk to people, preferably face to face, and these sorts of tools are removing that human element.”
AI could be a great tool in the right hands and used in the right way, but it should not be used as a replacement for human interaction and critical thinking, Snelling said.
“When it is, that's where you see outcomes that are actually far worse than if someone just did it themselves.
“With disputes, it pays to understand that if you talk to someone, you usually get a better outcome, much quicker, and often you'll strengthen the relationship.”
On the tenant advocacy front there were some good human support services like the Tenant Support Group and TPA Auckland, he added.