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PHOTO: The Residential Tenancies Act, governs rentals. FILE

“It was pouring out of the door like a waterfall cascading into the lounge,” he says.

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“We got big laundry hampers and were filling them up with water using pots and pans, but the water kept on coming. We filled them up numerous times until we realised it was pointless because unless the rain stops, the water is just gonna keep on coming.”

Four days later, the carpet is still soaked and he’s not been able to live in the house. He’s deciding whether he will keep paying rent.

“I’ve reached the end of my tether. I have no desire to pay these people rent while my house keeps flooding around me and they continue to not solve the problem.”

You don’t have to pay rent for a house you can’t live in

The Residential Tenancies Act, the law that governs rentals, says if your flat is destroyed, or so seriously damaged as to be uninhabitable, “the rent shall abate accordingly”.

Abatement means your rent either totally or partially reduces, says Lucy Telfar Barnard, senior research fellow at the University of Otago housing and health research programme.

Dr Lucy Telfar Barnard, senior research fellow at the University of Otago housing and health research programme.

Dr Lucy Telfar Barnard, senior research fellow at the University of Otago housing and health research programme. (Source: Supplied)

If your house is totally uninhabitable, you can totally stop paying rent until it is habitable again. If it’s partially uninhabitable, then you can pay reduced rent.

How much should your rent be reduced by?

There’s no legal formula, but if you rent a three-bedroom house and only two bedrooms are usable, then you would expect the rent to reduce to a property of that size, Lucy says.

If you and your landlord can’t agree what the rent reduction should be, you may need to go to the Tenancy Tribunal, she says.

Peter Lewis, vice president of the New Zealand Property Investors’ Federation, says you should discuss the amount with your landlord.

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Landlords should be open to the discussion, he says, because a tenant paying partial rent is still better than them moving out.

“I may figure that losing 50% [of my rental income] is better than losing 100%.”

So you can just…stop paying rent?

Yes, Lucy says.

The contents of a flood damaged flat in Grey Lynn sits outside.

The contents of a flood damaged flat in Grey Lynn sits outside.

You will need to let your landlord know that’s what’s happening, because you are required by law to tell them that the property is uninhabitable.

If you had paid rent in advance — say, you had just paid two weeks’ rent in advance on Thursday before the floods hit — and then the property is uninhabitable for those two weeks, you can ask your landlord for a refund, or for the payment to cover future weeks.

If they won’t refund you then you can apply to the Tenancy Tribunal.

But one thing to be clear on, says Lucy: “It doesn’t remove any arrears, so whatever rent was due to be paid up until the day [your house] was flooded still has to be paid.”

You’re also allowed to cancel your tenancy with only two days’ notice

Normally a tenant needs to give their landlord 28 days’ notice when they want to end a tenancy.

But when the premises are destroyed or are so seriously damaged that they’re uninhabitable, that goes down to only two days.

But a warning — there’s a flipside to this.

The landlord is also allowed to terminate the tenancy with seven days’ notice, which they might do if substantial work is needed to make the property safe and habitable again, says Lucy.

Okay, so if the house is uninhabitable you can totally stop paying rent. And if it’s partially uninhabitable you can negotiate a discount. But what counts as ‘partially uninhabitable’?

There’s not a set definition, Lucy says, so it depends on who is living there and the state of the house.

Who is living there

If you’re a group of flatmates and one bedroom is affected but everyone else can get into the rest of the house without going through that bedroom, then it might be okay for that one person to go live with someone else and you’d expect reduced rent for that room.

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“But that would be different than if there was a family living there — you wouldn’t expect one member of the family to go live somewhere else, so it does depend on the circumstances rather than on the state of the dwelling.”

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