The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) has today called for clearer guidelines around what is a reasonable standard of cleanliness when a tenant leaves a rental.
REINZ Chief Executive Bindi Norwell said in a release that MBIE's Tenancy Services should develop rules clearly laying out whether or not the tenant or property manager is liable to do things like professional cleaning, carpet cleaning or patching pin holes in walls.
Under current legislation, the only guide is that a property should be left "reasonably clean and tidy", which leads to a significant number of disagreements, Ms Norwell said, and those often end up in the Tenancy Tribunal.
"Where the confusion arises is the difference between what a landlord or property manager determines to be reasonable and what a tenant believes is reasonable – and these two views naturally tend to differ in around 90 per cent of cases,' Ms Norwell said.
"From a landlord’s perspective, if they've paid for professional cleaners to clean their investment property between tenants, when the new tenant leaves, they expect and assume that the property will be left in the same condition.
"It's also about the timeframe in which the cleaning needs to be undertaken, as this can be compounded when the next tenant is due to move in and there is still cleaning to be done."
REINZ said that in Australia there are much clearer rules, and they stipulate that a tenant must pay for professional cleaning of the property when they leave, and that picture hook holes must be filled.
"Unlike in Australia, where the rules are much more prescriptive, there is no 'yard stick' in New Zealand as to what actually constitutes being reasonably clean and tidy," Ms Norwell said.
"If landlords, property managers and tenants had an actual check list, then everyone would know exactly where they stand," she said.
"It would also be of significant benefit to the Tenancy Tribunal which is currently clogged with cases about cleaning."
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