Otago landlords with unruly tenants are being told to give them the boot before a law change makes that even harder to do.
Problem tenants will already know who they are, says Otago Property Investors' Association president Kathryn Seque. Photo: 123rf
But the group representing tenants' rights said the move was "highly unethical".
Limitations to terminating a rental were among new changes to tenancy rules that come into effect next February.
Landlords would need firm evidence, such as video of several anti-social events before going to the Tenancy Tribunal.
Otago Property Investors' Association president Kathryn Seque told Midday Report responsible tenants considerate of their neighbours need not be concerned.
"Keep the good tenants, keep the good relationships - especially while we're going through everything with Covid."
Seque said now might be the time for landlords to move along tenants with the potential to cause major hassles when the new laws come into effect.
She said "problem tenants" would know who they were, as they were likely to have received several warnings already.
"It's a good idea for landlords to move on those tenants who yell, throw bottles and play loud music at 2am on a Tuesday, and all of those things that do happen, unfortunately quite often.
"They're the ones likely to get eviction notices, and rightly so. We're not in a world where you can just do whatever you like."
Seque said while landlords planning to evict tenants will need more detailed evidence in future, it was not yet clear what form the evidence would need to be.
"I would think you'd have to witness the behaviour yourself. That means a landlord might have to go over to a property at 2.30 in the morning to hear the loud music, and record it."
She said neighbours threatened by bad behaviour were unlikely to want to put their name to any evidence that pointed to them as the reason a tenant was being given notice.
"In my mind it's definitely going to have to be a video recording of some sort, but tenants will also be able to take the landlord to the tribunal with every notice they receive, to dispute it."
Fears of unfair evictions
Renters United spokesperson Anna Mooney said the call to move tenants early could lead to some being evicted unfairly. She said it showed how urgently the new laws were needed.
"We'd really be hoping that landlords weren't going to use the opportunity to evict tenants for other reasons.
"Under the new law landlords are still going to be able to evict tenants who exhibit anti-social behaviour, but they're going to need to give evidence and go through a fair process."
Mooney said the group knew from experience that evictions happened for a number of reasons, and most of the time it was not because of anti-social behaviour.
"At this point in time landlords are able to evict tenants as a retaliation - if they want to get new tenants in, so yeah, we think this new law is just going to make things a lot fairer for tenants."
Read or download The Detail's recent look at changes to tenancy law
