Landlords want Tenancy Tribunal to track unpaid money

Monday, 2 March 2026

The Tenancy Tribunal hit one renter with a bill in excess of $1000 for lawn mowing.

No one tracks how much of the money ordered by the Tenancy Tribunal is ever paid, prompting a landlord advocate to call for the figures to be recorded so both landlords and renters can have confidence in the system.

The call comes after the Waikato Times sought figures on how much money is owed to landlords nationwide through Tenancy Tribunal rulings — and was told no such information is held.

Lawn mowing bills in excess of $1000, rent arrears of $25,000 and “beyond wear and tear” bills of $12,500.

The Tenancy Tribunal has the power to hit rogue renters’ in the pocket with some serious fines.

But exactly how much of that money is ever recovered remains unknown.

The Waikato Times filed an Official Information Act request with the Ministry of Justice, which administers the Tribunal, which was then transferred to the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment.

The response noted that MBIE provides a range of administrative supports for the Tenancy Tribunal.

The Tenancy Tribunal can and does levy fines for all sorts of tenant misbehaviour.

“However, we do not report on the Tribunal fines and do not hold the information requested,” the response said.

“The information requested is not held by the department or Minister of the Crown or organisation and the person dealing with the request has no grounds for believing that the information is either held by another department or Minister of the Crown or organisation, or by local authority.”

New Zealand Property Investors Federation spokesperson Matt Ball told the Waikato Times they were “surprised this information doesn’t exist as it would be a very useful metric”.

'If you don't know how much money is recovered from Tenancy Tribunal decisions, you have no idea how well the Tribunal is working or if it's worth making a claim. This lack of information can discourage people from even trying - this applies to tenants as well as landlords,“ he said.

'We already know that enforcement of Tenancy Tribunal awards is difficult, because it's a civil matter. If the other party won't pay, then you have to pursue the matter yourself through the courts. Some people abuse this to avoid paying.

The Tribunal often levies fines for property clean-ups.

'Many of our members tell us they feel discouraged from going to the Tribunal for more than the bond because it can be so difficult to get tenants to pay up.'

Ball said that while the current system makes it hard to track payments, “it's not impossible and we feel that it would be worthwhile trying”.

“We would then know the size of the problem and could then consider what steps could be taken to fix it.

'We urge the government to take action to require this data to be collected, in the interests of a well-functioning Tenancy Tribunal and rental market.“

The President of the Waikato Property Investors Association, Tiffany Whyte, took a more relaxed stance.

“It is a civil matter and there’s no other civil matter registries, so I don’t see any need to have a civil matter registry for amounts paid or being paid and needing to be updated weekly for the lowest court in the country,” she said.

Whyte also said the Tribunal process was not necessarily easy to navigate - though she admitted as a professional property manager, she was experienced at the process.

“I think the problem with the system is that those people who don’t go often, they’re really not clear on what’s required,” she said.

“Even though it’s the lowest court, it still requires factual proof, information, photographs and things like that.

“A lot of people go, particularly tenants and landlords who are uninformed, they will go with logic, and think logic will be able to sway the adjudicators to make a decision,” she said.

“If logic worked, you would have settled out of court before you got there.”

Whyte did suggest one topic she thought MBIE should be collecting data on: recidivist landlords.

“Those are the ones not being held to account,” she said.

“So these are the people we actually need to be targeting.”

She noted one other issue with the system, something that is dogging the higher courts too - delays.

Referring to a Tribunal case she was involved in the day before speaking to the Times, she said “this case that was heard yesterday, the tenancy ended in May last year”.