Understanding Tenancy Tribunal orders

When making an application to the Tribunal, consider what orders the tenant wants the Tenancy Tribunal to make.
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What can a tenant apply for?

The Tenancy Tribunal can make a variety of orders, including but not limited to:

  • A declaration of the legal status of any premises or agreement, or on the rights or obligations of any party
  • An order that a party yield possession of any premises to any other party
  • An order that a party pay money to any other party
  • A work order

When making an application the tenant must be clear what sort of order they are applying for.

Quick tip

It can be helpful to search past Tenancy Tribunal decisions for similar situations to get a sense of what orders might be granted.

Compensation

A request for compensation is best used when the tenant has been left with a cost or burden due to the landlord not meeting their obligations or any other proven breach. As well as monetary costs, this can cover less tangible costs, such as psychological and stress-related harm caused by the landlord's breach.

A tenant could apply for compensation where:

  • the landlord’s actions in breaching the RTA have resulted in a monetary cost to the tenant
  • the landlord's actions in breaching the RTA have directly resulted in a cost to the tenant such as loss of enjoyment of the tenancy or other psychological or stress-related harm 
  • the tenant has done something (eg, paid for urgent repairs) the landlord should have done.

Examples of the types of costs that might be considered when calculating compensation include:

  • labour costs for time repairing something the landlord failed to repair
  • materials costs for repairing something the landlord failed to repair
  • compensation towards power or medical costs that arose because of the landlord's failure to maintain the property
  • the value of the tenant’s belongings that were lost or damaged because of the landlord's failure to maintain the property.

Quick tip

Be sure to provide a reasonable amount of detail and breakdown of costs in the application to ensure that it can proceed. If there is not enough information, Tenancy Services will likely request further information before progressing the application.

Exemplary damages

Exemplary damages are fines for breaching obligations and are intended to act as a deterrent. They are not compensation, although they are awarded to the harmed party.

Exemplary damages should be claimed when there is a clear instance of an unlawful act. See the list of unlawful acts in Schedule 1A of the Residential Tenancies Act.

In deciding whether to award exemplary damages, the Tribunal will take into account the:

  • intent of that person in committing the unlawful act
  • effect of the unlawful act
  • interests of the landlord or the tenant against whom the unlawful act was committed
  • public interest (s 109(3) RTA).

Work Orders

A work order is where the Tribunal orders for the landlord to fix something on the property. These are often physical and structural problems with the home, or something that hasn’t been properly maintained. When applying for work orders, the tenant should provide a full list of issues to be fixed. The tenant does not have to provide the date of discovery or estimated costs of repairing.

For this situation the tenant needs to have evidence that they have informed the landlord of the problem before making an application. Being able to show that a 14-day notice was given (and the issue has not been fixed) is the best evidence of this.

Other orders

This for anything that the tenant would like the Tenancy Tribunal to make an order on that isn’t covered by one of the other sections.

Other orders that a tenant may apply for include:

  • A declaration that a tenancy is covered under the Residential Tenancies Act.
  • A declaration that a notice to terminate the tenancy is unlawful and should be of no effect.
  • To be released from a fixed term tenancy early.

Next steps

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