Majority of landlords reject Government’s no-cause evictions

A majority of landlords oppose no-cause evictions, but they look set to return anyway.
The return of no-cause evictions was proposed by the coalition Government as a way to allow landlords to take on “riskier” tenants and thereby open up more of the housing market. 
The practice, which enables a landlord to issue a 90-day notice to any tenant, was halted by the Residential Tenancies Amendment Act 2020, but a coalition agreement between National and Act means they will return this year.
When Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced the proposed legislation, along with a suite of changes to tenancy laws outlined in the National-Act coalition agreement, he said no-cause evictions would make it easier for “mum and dad landlords” to get into the rental market, boost supply and put downward pressure on rents.
“We’ve heard from many landlords that, without the backstop of 90-day ‘no cause’ terminations, they were unwilling to take a chance on a tenant who may, for example, not have perfect references or a steady 9-5 job.”
But a new report from the Social Services and Community Select Committee on the latest amendment bill showed the majority of landlords did not support these evictions.
The only group that had a majority of submitters backing the bill were large-scale property owners and developers.
The select committee report found opposition to the return of no-cause evictions was overwhelming, with 97 percent of public submitters recommending they stay in the past. 
When looking solely at submissions from landlords, a slim majority still saw no reason to return to the practice.
A closer look at the select committee submissions from landlords found those most likely to support the Government’s proposed change came from the sub-group of large property companies and developers.
The Auckland Property Investors Association surveyed 3296 members and subscribers, and reported 73 percent believed no-cause evictions would make it easier to manage their properties.
The association said it understood concerns from tenant groups but believed there were sufficient provisions to stop no-cause evictions being abused. The submission also said that only 8.2 percent of those surveyed said they would default to the 90-day no-fault termination as their primary method of ending a tenancy.
The same property group reiterated a point stressed by Bishop in his Cabinet proposal for the amendment bill: that – in the property group’s words – an easier pathway to eviction would make landlords more willing to rent to people with a “less-than-perfect” rental history. 
In a Cabinet committee paper seeking approval to introduce the bill, Bishop said this change would enable landlords to take on riskier tenants and increase the overall supply of housing on offer; to “encourage landlords to offer their properties for rent, where they may currently be discouraged from doing so”.
He said the impetus for the change was the fact that “landlords and property managers have raised concerns”.
Property developer Connect Property Management said: “Bringing back the 90-day no-cause terminations is a must … No landlords will end a tenancy if the tenants are good.” 
The overall message from large management groups was clear: good landlords will not use this to evict good tenants, only anti-social ones who would otherwise be tricky to kick out.
And the New Zealand Property Investors’ Federation said they saw “no problem” in reintroducing no-cause evictions, while noting that landlords provided an “essential service”. Without them, they said, the New Zealand housing market “would be destroyed”.
Green Party spokesperson for housing Tamatha Paul said history was not a useful precedent in this case, and believed some things were best left in the past.
Paul said she wasn’t surprised to see support coming mostly from large rental companies, because “at the end of the day, they’re just trying to turn a profit”. 
Meanwhile, she noted that both National and Act had received significant donations from groups that could stand to benefit from these changes – namely property investors and developers.
Last Parliamentary term, the amount of money donated to National and Act by groups or individuals associated with property development was more than the total donations received by the Labour and Green parties combined.
The Law Association recommended in its submission that instead of reintroducing no-cause evictions, the Government could instead amend the current policies around anti-social behaviour, if that were their chief concern. 
Meanwhile, community groups submitted against the bill, noting the potential impact on those who had suffered family violence.
Mongrel Mob Mana Wahine Wahinetoa submitted that the resumption of no-cause evictions would only exacerbate current harms, with consequences only reinforcing the “less-than-perfect” rental histories large property groups seemed most worried about.
“Previous abusive partners of gang wahine can locate them easy [sic] causing incidents that already lead to evictions and homelessness,” read the submission. 
The Women’s Refuge warned the re-introduction of no-cause evictions was in breach of the Domestic Violence – Victims’ Protection Act 2018. This made it illegal to discriminate based on being affected by domestic violence, and the Women’s Refuge argued a no-cause eviction made it impossible to prove discrimination. The select committee’s response to this was that discrimination remained unlawful, and a tenant could challenge this.
Another area of the bill sought to strengthen tenants’ rights. If a person’s dependent was the victim of family violence, that person could now withdraw from the tenancy and take the dependent with them. 
But in Paul’s mind, this wasn’t enough of a change to offset the harms caused by resuming no-cause evictions. 
“We can make little tweaks to try and appease really genuine concerns, but at the end of the day, as long as that door remains open to kick somebody out for no reason at all, then a lot of those little tweaks mean nothing.”
She said bringing back these evictions would “one hundred percent drive up pressure on environments where domestic violence can occur”.