Five flatmates who shared a rented house in Upper Riccarton, Christchurch, have been awarded $2500 by the Tenancy Tribunal after the property owner’s mother repeatedly let herself into their home uninvited, including walking into a bedroom while one of the women was in bed with her partner.
The tenants, Paige Galland, Maia McGregor, Sylvia Brown, Libby Hutchings and Chloe Lui, took their case to the tribunal after a tenancy that began on 28 December 2024 and ran for about a year. According to the decision, first reported by RNZ, the owner’s mother, Ying Sin, turned up at the property again and again without warning, mostly after 6pm, and was, in the words of the tenants, pretty much always there.
The most serious incident involved Sin entering a bedroom while a tenant and her boyfriend were naked in bed. Adjudicator Brett Greene found the tenants’ account credible, noting that although Sin denied the accusations, others involved in managing the property accepted what had taken place. “The incident when Sin entered a bedroom was serious. While Sin denied the tenants’ accusations, the fact that Mr Wongeoon, and apparently the owner, recognised what was happening corroborates the tenants’ evidence,” Greene wrote in his decision.
Eddie Wongeoon, of Wongeoon Vast Limited, managed the property. Greene found that while the manager had not personally intruded on the tenants, he had allowed the situation to continue. “Wongeoon did not interfere with the tenants’ reasonable peace, comfort, or privacy, but he permitted the interference by Sin,” the adjudicator wrote.
Every residential tenancy in New Zealand carries a legal right to what the law calls quiet enjoyment, meaning the tenant is entitled to reasonable peace, comfort and privacy in their home. A landlord who wants to enter a rented property has to give proper notice except in a genuine emergency, and cannot simply drop in whenever they please. Greene found that Sin’s constant unannounced visits breached that right. “The tenants experienced a loss of enjoyment of the tenancy because their peace, comfort and privacy were constantly interrupted,” he wrote.
The tribunal awarded $1500 for the breaches of quiet enjoyment. It added a further $1000 for delayed and inadequate repairs, taking the total to $2500.
The repairs part of the claim centred on hot water and a bedroom door. The tenants said they had raised a problem with the hot water cylinder around three months before it was formally logged on 18 August, and that a replacement did not arrive until 8 September. In the meantime the cylinder leaked so badly that a bucket had to be placed underneath it, and it made a high-pitched noise for weeks. Panels also fell off a bedroom door, and after a repair the door dragged on the carpet and would not close properly, leaving the tenants to hold it together with duct tape.
Greene treated both problems as more than minor inconveniences, pointing to the everyday impact on people trying to live normally in the house. “Being able to use a shower without hindrance is important and necessary, as is having a bedroom door that ensures privacy and closes properly,” he wrote.
The tenants had also sought exemplary damages, an extra penalty the tribunal can impose when a landlord breaks the rules deliberately or with a reckless disregard for the tenant. That part of the claim was dismissed. Greene accepted that Sin’s behaviour had caused real harm, but decided she had not set out to do wrong. Sin “seemed to me to be a person who had no idea that what she was doing was inappropriate,” he wrote, and on that basis the higher penalty could not be justified.
For Paige Galland, the refusal of exemplary damages was hard to accept after a year of disruption. “We had spoken with numerous lawyers, property managers and landlords leading up to the hearing and we were expecting a lot more compensation or at least for what we had to deal with for the entire year to feel justified,” she said. She described the dismissal of that part of the claim as a “slap in the face”.
The case is a reminder of how far the right to quiet enjoyment reaches, and how easily it can be lost when the line between owning a property and living in it gets blurred. A landlord, a family member acting for a landlord, or a property manager cannot use a spare key as an open invitation. Tenants who feel their privacy is being ignored can keep a written record of each visit, put their concerns to the landlord or manager in writing, and, if nothing changes, apply to the Tenancy Tribunal for a ruling and compensation.
Newswire has a plain English guide to tenant rights in New Zealand that explains quiet enjoyment, entry rules and repairs in more detail, along with a separate guide on how the Tenancy Tribunal works and what it can and cannot order. The tribunal hears thousands of disputes a year, most of them over bond, rent arrears and repairs, and its decisions are binding on both sides.
Cases like this one rarely make headlines, but they set out in clear terms what renters are entitled to expect. A home is still a home even when someone else owns it, and the people who live there are allowed to close the door.
Have you dealt with a landlord who would not respect your privacy, or won a case at the Tenancy Tribunal yourself? Share your experience in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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