New approach to tenancy management

Our frontline teams are making earlier and more frequent use of the tools available under the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA).

In the past three months, there has been a six-fold increase in warning notices issued compared to the same period last year, and twice the number of forced relocations have occurred to resolve tenancy issues.

There have also been significantly more applications for tenancy terminations. In the past three months we have ended 14 tenancies for either disruptive behaviour or rental debt.

Alongside this, we are now introducing a new Tenancy Management Framework that will strike a better balance between our responsibilities as a landlord, the responsibilities of tenants, and the quiet enjoyment of others in the community. This will inform our approach to a range of tenancy issues, including rental arrears, disruptive behaviour and the management of pets. Our approach is about being firm but fair.

To drive further progress, we are rolling out a new Disruptive Behaviour policy to formalise our new approach and guide how our frontline teams respond to disruptive behaviour.

We will still work to understand what’s driving behaviour and refer tenants to specialist social and health services to address underlying issues. We will continue to use notices and relocation to prompt behaviour change.

However, we are also introducing an escalated approach in two situations: where a tenant’s behaviour creates a significant safety issue; or where behaviour is disruptive and persistent, and a household ignores our warnings. In these situations, we will apply to the Tenancy Tribunal to terminate the tenancy – and we will not provide the tenant with another home.

Ultimately, this new approach is designed to provide a clear deterrent for disruptive behaviour and spark behaviour change.

Since 1 July we have been rolling out guidance and training to our frontline teams to support them to act quickly when responding to disruptive behaviour. We are also working to ensure our tenants are aware of the changes and what they mean for how we manage tenancies.

These changes are focused on addressing serious disruptive behaviour. Many of the issues people get in touch with us about are minor things that are common issues between neighbours throughout the country, like noisy cars, lawns not being mowed regularly or how often visitors are calling at a home. We will continue to address these types of concerns through our existing processes.

It is important to stress the approach that we are taking will not have any impact on the majority of Kāinga Ora tenants who already do the right thing, are responsible tenants, and treat their neighbours with respect.

We will regularly publish performance data around how we are responding to disruptive behaviour on our website - this will begin in late-July.

Attributed to Nick Maling, General Manager of National Services