A Queenstown landlord who crammed tenants into partitioned rooms, garages, caravans and a bus has been ordered to pay $81,050 on behalf of 117 tenants.
Conrad Joseph Lawrence Goodger and his companies Rent Ezi and Nice View Limited ran eight boarding houses – four of them unlawful and overcrowded, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment said.
The ministry began investigating after complaints from tenants and a fire at one of his properties.
Despite site visits, an interview and a formal warning from its Tenancy Compliance and Investigations Team (TCIT), the Ministry said Goodger's properties remained non-compliant with the Residential Tenancies Act.
"All the properties were overcrowded and operating as boarding houses, with many tenants unsure of the number of occupants and their names. Several of the rooms were notably cramped. One tenant described their space as having a sloped ceiling that made it hard to stand upright, while another was sharing a single room with four others," the ministry said.
The TCIT referred Goodger to the Tenancy Tribunal last year, which found the accommodation often lacked proper fire safety, ventilation, or sanitation.
It found numerous tenancy agreements were missing key information, while others included unlawful clauses that undermined tenants' rights.
Despite Goodger claiming TCIT's investigations were a "fishing expedition" aimed at putting him to out of business, the tribunal's adjudicator, Kate Lash, found there was "no evidence that TCIT were targeting Mr Goodger and trying to identify an issue upon which they could prosecute".
Goodger and his companies were ordered to pay $53,600 for breaches of building, health, and safety requirements; $15,250 for unlawful tenancy agreement clauses; and $12,200 for failing to include mandatory information in tenancy agreements.
They were also issued with a restraining order – prohibiting further breaches of those obligations for three years.
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