Apartment rental insurance question

wellygary:

surfisup1000:

Yes, but, this says 'a TENANT has no liability'. The tenant of one unit is not the tenant of the adjoining units . The legislation says nothing about damage to 'neighbouring' units or common areas.

Surely I must be wrong here? As you say, not many renters would be covered otherwise. But, these issues do seem to come up over the years when someone is driven bankrupt by flaws in the law.

I know what you are saying, but the tenancy tribunal seems to treat other apartments as part of the tenancy property in this 2020 case...

The following link is about a case where a landlord attempted to get reparations from a tenant after a flooded bathroom went through the floor and damages the below unit,

"The landlord had applied for recovery of rent arrears, failure to pay water charges, compensation for damage caused to the premises and the adjoining premises, and recovery of the application fee. "

"Evidence as to the cause of the flood is essential to the applicant’s claim. A landlord must prove that damage to the premises occurred during the tenancy and is more than fair wear and tear. If this is established, to avoid liability, the tenant must prove they did not carelessly or intentionally cause or permit the damage. Tenants are liable for the actions of people at the premises with their permission. See sections 40(2)(a), 41 and 49B of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (the Act)."

"Tribunal finds that the applicant failed to prove that the flood was caused by any careless or intentional act of, or any
breach of the Act by, the tenants. Accordingly, no order can be made against the tenants and the application must be dismissed."

https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/6274152-Tribunal_Order.pdf

This is an interesting one. There is only one reason I can think of why the landlord would possibly try to claim for damage to a neighbouring unit/property at the Tenancy Tribunal. Ordinarily I would consider that the landlord is not a party to that damage, and therefore it would be the responsibility of the downstairs owner and/or their insurer to pursue the upstairs tenant directly for the damage.

However it's possible that there's a specific body corporate rule at play in this particular example - eg "as a unit owner, you are responsible for any consequential damage or loss to any other unit owner caused by the actions or omissions of your tenant". This could explain why this landlord chose to pursue the neighbouring unit damage in the tenancy tribunal - action that in my eyes was always doomed to fail. Even if the landlord did convince the adjudicator that the damage was careless or intentional, that portion of the damage resulted in no direct loss to the landlord.

In the absence such a body corporate rule mentioned above, I would expect that the next action after the landlord losing the tenancy hearing was for the downstairs unit owner or their insurer to directly pursue the upstairs tenant in court (Disputes Tribunal if under $30k, or the District Court ($30k-$350k).

surfisup1000

surfisup1000

MikeAqua

Wheelbarrow01