Broad support for boarding house landlord register

It's been almost a year since Bryan Watling was evicted from a derelict boarding house in Auckland that had been his home for seven years.

He said it became unsafe when squatters took over most of the rooms - the house has now been demolished.

Watling has been in what he describes as an upmarket boarding house ever since and said if a planned boarding house register helped lift standards, he supports it.

"That would be awesome because people have a right to be safe and to feel safe and to live in a suitable standard of living."

He's a veteran of this type of accommodation.

"I've stayed at many different boarding houses around Auckland over the years and I've seen the police come and go from them almost daily at some places."

Boarding houses provide basic shelter for some of the most vulnerable people but it's unknown how many there are.

Legal experts are worried a move to register boarding house landlords would still leave a loophole, allowing them to avoid being counted.

A member's bill from Labour MP Jenny Salesa would set up a public register of landlords and their properties and set out what would disqualify someone.

Salesa put forward the amendment bill after door knocking in her electorate - it sat in the Parliament biscuit tin ballot for a few years before being drawn.

"Unfortunately I came across in doing that quite a few boarding houses that were not fit for human beings to live in or for animals to live in. Some of these boarding houses didn't even have running water."

She said there needed to be national oversight of the boarding houses and the people who managed them.

In 2014, a Social Services Select Committee inquiry highlighted significant failures in the regulation of boarding houses and recommended a national register of such lodges.

"This is not a new problem, no knowing how many boarding houses there are not just in Auckland but right across the country."

It comes three years after the Loafer's Lodge fire in Wellington which left five dead and 20 injured.

Earlier this year, RNZ revealed that of the 38 illegal boarding houses Auckland Council inspected last year, all but nine appeared to evade further inspection by changing the tenancy agreements to that of a flatting arrangement.

The Law Association supported registering boarding house landlords and their properties and called for further changes in its submission to the Residential Tenancies (Registration of Boarding House Landlords) Amendment Bill.

Its property committee spokesperson Joanna Pidgeon said while the landlord would list what boarding houses they had, there was no separate registration of properties against a benchmark.

"We would like to see the bill go further because often it's not just the people who are operating these boarding hosues which have created problems it's actually the standards of the boarding houses themselves which create the issues."

She said landlords could still skirt around the rules and create flatting tenancies potentially putting vulnerable people at risk.

"Flatmates don't have the protection of the Residential Tenancies Act so it actually empowers landlords to possibly be a lot more cavalier with the other occupiers' rights and often these are vulnerable people."

Pidgeon said boarding houses also had more fire safety requirements than a residental house.

In its submission, the Law Association said its property committee was concerned that registering boarding house landlords rather than properties may contribute to the proliferation of underground "boarding houses".

"This is a health and safety issue as for example residential tenancies only need domestic fire detectors, but boarding houses are required to have more safety measures, such as fire emergency evacuation procedures and sprinklers."

The association was asking for an anti-avoidance procedure where landlords were setting up artificial structures to avoid complying with the legislation.

Pidgeon said there were boarding houses that were run safely whose managers sought to look after those living there and they would benefit from regulation if the cowboys were shut down.

Salesa said she was grateful for the Law Association's input as the changes went through the Select Committee process.

"I'm sure that there will be some threads and some themes that will come through. It will only help to make the law stronger and so that loopholes like this are something that should be covered by amendments in the House as it goes through the next stage."

Boarding house manager says regulation is sensible

Charlton Property Management manages 20 boarding houses in Auckland, ranging in size from 25 to 130 rooms, on behalf of the property owners.

Its co-owner Fred Ofa said it supported the move to register landlords and their properties but were concerned about potential additional costs of compliance.

"We support good operators being held accountable and providing accomodation which should be met by appropriate standards," Ofa said.

"I think it's a sensible thing that they do regulate it ... but it's the additional costs without addressing the real issue behind the shortage of affordable housing," he said.

"Good operators will comply with the healthy home standard, fire requirements, tenancy laws. The focus should be on supporting quality providers and removing poor operators."

He said once there was a national register, government departments should refer people only to boarding houses that were registered and complied with safety standards.

Ofa said people staying at boarding houses had often run out of options elsewhere and that required on site staff to manage the properties.

"We're the ones dealing with mental health issues, we're dealing with probation and Corrections, anyone undesirable that gets pushed out. They don't get housing in a single bedroom in Remuera," he said.

"We're the ones that are housing them because no-one else is housing them."

He said the weekly rent needed to cover the additional staff needed for boarding houses, the upkeep and utilities.

Better options for boarding house tenants

As a long-term boarding house tenant, Watling said the difference could be in who was running them - he'd like to see more training for those managing lodges.

"It comes down to who's managing a property at the time, who's actually on site as the site manager. If you've got lacklustre ones it can be pretty dangerous but if you've got a strong site manager it can be pretty strict.

"This one here would probably be the best one I've come across I think it's more of a upmarket boarding house."

The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services had also lodged a submission, strongly supporting the legislation and suggesting several changes.

Its chief executive Alicia Sudden said in the submission that boarding house tenants were often removed from the waiting list for social housing and that needed to change.

"This leaves people for whom a boarding house was designed to be a stop gap, with limited access to more long-term and secure housing options," she said.

"Updating the definition of a boarding house tenancy would provide protections for those experiencing severe housing deprivation and allow a pathway to more permanent housing options."

The Ministry of Social Development categorised those living in a boarding house as low or no need for social housing.

"While we acknowledge that some boarding houses can and do provide suitable accommodation for tenants long-term, this is not always the case and we know that for many boarding houses are deemed as a last resort and a temporary housing solution," Sudden said.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development would oversee the boarding house landlord register.

The Council of Christian Social Services was also calling for the offences for boarding house landlords breaching the Residential Tenancies Act to be increased up to $50,000 in line with similar breaches the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is able to seek.

It also wants minimum education requirements for boarding house landlords, to ensure they understood the laws and regulations they have to abide by.

"Member organisations continue to raise issues faced by clients they support regarding both the quality and cost of rooms in boarding houses," Sudden said of the up to $450 a week charge for a room with shared facilities.

Submissions to the amendment bill to register boarding house landlords would be made public in coming weeks.