NZPIF President's April Report

14 Apr 2008

During April, Associations are focusing on assisting members and other property investors to cope with the current environment of high interest rates and slowing house sales.  In particular, regular activities for new members are being promoted and some Associations are also providing additional facilitated discussion groups.

I attended a Tenancy Services Customer Meeting earlier in April and a number of items of interest to our members were discussed.

• It was confirmed that Tenancy Tribunal decisions do not become case law, and set precedents, unless they go to appeal at a District Court. 
• In future, Tenancy Services is going to spend more time gaining agreement for dates and times for hearings so that not so much time is spent rescheduling.
• Unfortunately it has been found that not all Tribunal orders are being entered into the Tenancy Tribunal Online database.  It is important to check any you are aware of 10 working days after the orders have been made.
• Tenancy Orders Online (TTOL) is going to change its name to GTO (Generate Tenancy Orders).
• The Bond Fund is now $248m with $28m being generated in interest.  This interest income is sufficient to run the Tenancy Tribunals. 
• Tenancy Services acknowledges that it can extract a lot more data from the information forwarded to it.  It will be trying to analyse this information in more detail and for more specific geographic areas in future.
• The Collections Department is doing more to assist people get the money, which has been awarded and who can represent them.  Perhaps PIAs could assist with this.

The New Landlord Seminars have been going well around the country, with consistently high levels of satisfaction being recorded by attendees.   The current series finishes in June 2008 and we will begin negotiating with DBH regarding the next series.

Thomas Chin is working on a schedule of appointments with politicians on both sides of the House.  These will take place between now and the election.  We hope to meet with the Minister of Building and Construction, Shane Jones, Minister of Housing, Maryan Street, Phil Heatley National Party Spokesperson for housing, and representatives of NZ First, the Green Party, the Maori Party, and United Future. We also encourage PIAs to build relationships with their local MPs.  With the RTA Amendment Bill due to be tabled in Parliament in the near future, we must make use of every opportunity to talk to politicians and senior officials in the Department of Building and Construction.