Head tenants proving a ‘law unto themselves'
When it comes to rental accommodation issues, the most complaints Queenstown's Citizens Advice Bureau receives relate to head tenants — which they're powerless to do anything about.
"Landlords have rules they have to stick by, head tenants don't," manager Tracy Pool says.
"Flatmates have no real rights, so head tenants get away with so much."
That includes putting their co-tenants' rent up without the notice period a landlord has to give, or raising their power bills when a tenant might not have even seen the bill.
"We'll have people walk in here and say, 'oh, they've told me they want me out tomorrow', or 'they want me out next week'."
Pool says a lot of head tenants treat their co-tenants well, "but some of them seem to be repeat offenders".
She adds Tenancy Services "will not cover anything to do with flatmates".
"So one of the biggest problems we have is that flatmates have no rights, no real rights."
However, she says it's a different story if the head tenant's your employer, who's rented a house or a unit to house their staff in.
"This is then considered as a service tenancy", she explains, which comes under the Residential Tenancies Act 1986.
"We don't have a lot of issues really with staff accommodation so much, most of our issues come from independent head tenants with flatmates."
The only difference between a service tenancy and a tenancy agreement, Pool says, is the notice period if you're no longer employed by the company providing your housing.
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