Auckland’s Sugartree Apartments accused of discrimination over ‘social housing’ ban
An Auckland apartment complex is accused of discriminating against beneficiaries after trying to force out a 71-year-old tenant amid claims he is the recipient of “social housing”.
Sugartree Apartments on Union St has issued a breach of body corporate rules notice to the overseas-based apartment owner who let his unit to an Auckland City Mission client.
The pensioner signed a tenancy agreement with letting agency A Grade Rental Homes and began his tenancy earlier this month after being referred by community housing agency Airedale Property Trust.
The landlord class have a vast power over the renter class who have bugger all!
Here the Property Management scum are targeting beneficiaries while constantly trying to find ways to endlessly push up rents.
Surely an explosion of food inflation and oppressive rent hikes must be met with militancy!
A nationwide rent strike with clear instructions to the landlords to get the rent paid by Labour would terrify this nation of property speculators and their political handlers.
Burning down ghost houses should be next.
Previously renter militancy couldn’t be collectively harvested to be effective but social media can do that and so much more!
The politicians, landlords and banks have rigged the game for themselves – if we enter a winter of discontent from greedy landlords raising rents, we should strike back on the place that hurts them most, their wallets and their precious assets!
The truth (like everything else in fucking NZ), is that the under regulated free market has been warped by the wealthy for their interests and all Labour attempt is bullshit tinkering on the sides rather than challenge the dominance of neoliberal theology.
We have allowed the commodification of houses to be a means to make wealth and people are chasing that with all the nuance of meth addicts in a P lab.
If Labour wanted actual solutions, these 3 would do it.
1 – FLOOD MARKET WITH MASS STATE HOUSING REBUILD: End the scum landlord subsidy of housing allowances end putting money into the pockets of unscrupulous motel owners by rapidly building 50 000 new state homes. Scum Landlords can do as they please because the level of desperation amongst renters gives them total power. Flooding the market with 50 000 new state houses would rob scum landlords of that desperation.
2 – STATE HOUSE FOR LIFE: Allow beneficiaries to stay in their state home for life so that they can create stable communities and that their desperation is never transported back to Landlords.
3 – DEPOSIT RESTRICTIONS: First time home buys should be required to have 10% deposit, but the more properties you own, the higher the deposit. The reason the speculators can out buy any first time home owner is because they can use their multiple properties to leverage more debt. If you are a property speculator, you need to turn up with a 70% deposit to counter the leverage multiple properties allows them.
If Labour want to actually solve the problem they have to regulate the market and re-set it so that speculation is punished while first home ownership and housing of the poor is championed.
For too long we have allowed the the rich to dictate the rules, if Labour’s kindness is to be meaningful, it needs to challenge that dynamic.
Unfortunately Labour are not looking for solutions, they are looking for the pretence of a solution to ease criticism from their Left.
That’s ‘neokindness’.
A rent strike would force Labour to do something more meaningful than tilting their head to one side and nodding sadly!
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“If Labour want to actual to solve the problem…”
Exactly!
If they wanted to they would. They don’t. Jacinda’s government is all about perception management, nothing more. Hence they are toast come election night 2023!
So if I wanted to vote National, what would THEY do XRAY?
Would they also be toast?
My heart fluttered this morning as I read of you saying you would vote National .I thought you had finally seen the light .
And typically you never addressed the question. Is that a right wing thing?
And typically you never addressed the question. Is that a right wing thing?
Its not about National, Bert, why can’t you see that?
Solve the problem.
trouble is xray the ‘perception’ people have is that they’re neither use nor ornament.
Yep – here is a sure-fire way to increase homelessness – burn down houses. Ever thought what catastrophe would happen if private landlords stopped investing in houses because of renter ‘militancies’? Oh that’s right, the government will fix it all with Kiwibuild.
Ghost houses are not homes, they are financial assets. You keep them empty to reduce depreciation whilst they rapidly (until recently) acrue capital gains at a rate much higher than inflation. From a financial standpoint they make sense, no nasty tenants to deal with who might trash the place, nothing but massive, tax free profits when you sell at the most advantageous time. From a community standpoint they are a blight, they take up space and absolutely fail to fulfill the role they were theoretically built for. Burning them down doesn’t effect the housing shortage, as these never filled that role anyway. Of course being fully insured, you could realize profits earlier then redevelop to make the site even more profitable with even more ghost houses. Occupying them would send a stronger message, plus as many of the owners are less hands on or overseas, they may not even notice.
The ghost houses are currently going down in value…
Correct, but you only lock in that loss of value if you sell. So unless you are over-leveraged or have some other need to liquidate assets, you just hold them until the market improves again and since no one is going to do anything real to fix the underlying issue, the value will go up long term (barring rapid depopulation resulting from the situation is Ukraine spiraling out of control) because the game is rigged that way.
If you hold ghost houses, money is unlikely to be an issue (otherwise you’d need tenants to provide income) and you are generally playing the long game or hiding money overseas.
so an empty home exposed to NZ weather with no occupant avoids material depreciation and degradation does it dicky?
confiscation without recompense would solve the issue….if you wanna reap the benefits of being a landlord do the fuckin work of actually being a landlord…
burning ’em down is just plain wasteful.
Depends on the materials, location, style, age etc, but depreciation would be considerably less than if the house is occupied, especially if you get bad tenants. Kitchens, bathrooms & carpets are expensive and deteriorate quickly with people using them everyday. Even if you pay a property management company to keep the grounds tidy & to look after the place, you’ll still be ahead on the tax free capital gains profits when you sell. Also if you’re hiding money outside of your own country, these sort of issues aren’t your major concern.
The other thing, some people are simply land banking, so the house doesn’t represent any real value. If it falls or better still, burns down (you get the insurance money then and the site cleared for free), it is no real loss. The game is rigged and you can pretty much bet it isn’t rigged in your favour. Have you been to a $1750 a head event with your elected representatives recently?
As to confiscation without compensation, that always ends badly (just look how badly the Buyback failed). People who own ghost houses don’t want to be landlords, they want a safe investment with great tax free returns. That’s why they’ve invested in the best paying game in NZ, where the profits are Government guaranteed & tax free. No hassles with pesky tenants, just lots of lovely capital gain rocketing ever upwards (mostly).
laws in NZ are all on the landlords side so quit the ‘poor me’ stuff.
and confiscation is not ‘buy back’
use it or lose it.
That’s because we have the best politicians that money can buy.
Though I’m not sure where you get the “poor me” bit, very little actually effects me. I didn’t lose anything in the Buyback, which was confiscation with compensation. Some people lost money as well as their treasured possessions, which they wouldn’t have “sold” if they had choice, others made money selling junk to the Government. The last gun I sold, I made 3 times what I paid for it, if the Government had taken it, I would have got less than 2 times. If you lowball offers, you shouldn’t be surprised if some people don’t accept them.
Buy low, sell high, but always keep your eye out for a change in the winds, and don’t get caught holding the bag when the music stops. Oh and you should probably invest in Bitcoins or maybe Dogecoins. You could be a winner too.
If labour wanted to,
but they don’t want to
that is why they don’t do
Labour, could, should, but wont.
The story ends here.
And pray tell sheep shaggers what will Natzos and ACT do on this very issue? I ask not to illustrate that Natzo, Acto and Labour are all guilty as charged on state housing, but to expose your intellectual dishonesty in not also criticising your beloved blue suit wearers while you put the slipper into Labour.
Natzos will not build any more state houses, and they will work for a clamp down on tenants.
p.s. to our esteemed Editor;
I think “burn down” is definitely not the first option for ghost houses and empty commercial property–well run occupations are–people will be housed and able to run small businesses and co-ops. Rent strikes need exacting organisation just like the few areas that have tried Local Govt. Rate Strikes–very difficult to organise effectively without individuals getting hung out to dry.
passing squaters rights would get them filled with tenants pretty quickly…
No comment about why private investors don’t want state house tenants because they don’t uphold their end of an agreement, make meth in houses, destroy others property, are neighbours from hell, Kainga Ora being useless at evicting violent tenants, etc…?
a small percentage yeti once again a gross rightard perception passed off as fact…KOs no eviction policy is the stupid part, and of course the nats shovelling money into the pockets of their mates in the bogus testing fraternity.
The simplest, easiest, quickest way is
1. the government buys houses on the market to house those on the waiting list – they then get income related rent they can afford.
We have 25,000 on the waiting list, because we have 60,000 state houses (as we did when we had 3 million people), rather than 100,000.
So buy 25,000 and house those on the waiting list. That and that alone fulfills our UN Declaration of Human Rights commitment to house the homeless.
2. the government build 30,000 more over 3 years (15,000 for state housing and the others for Kiwibuild).
3. Oh and enforce a rent freeze on the private sector – if the landlord wants to increase to charge higher rent let them build a new property.
PS The government elimination of mortgage interest deductability is forcing landlords to increase equity in their property holdings OR become businesses (these can claim interest deductability but have to pay tax on their buy and sell ops).
Not a bad idea at all SPC, has to beat the current motel scenario where debt is established against beneficiaries, while moteliers rake in millions of tax payer dollars.
What they are doing now is totally inadequate.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/government-demolishes-more-houses-than-it-builds-national/HTPVPJGOTTLZMJJSBOHMB2JLO4/
Ardern is the problem. She denies a CGT and she denies ghost homes exist. She is a fraud. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/08/jacinda-ardern-not-convinced-by-ghost-home-concerns-despite-data-showing-40-000-vacant-in-auckland.amp.html
You cannot just build 50k houses. Labour wanted to be 10000 a year and couldnt.
Building a house in this country is super hard and expensive. Hence we have a problem.
Empowering people to build more through less legislation/red tape would seem to me to be a more productive way to get more houses built.
Labour’s Kiwibuild was middle class adventurism, developers and the industry basically went on strike, they want higher margin jobs always.
State House mega build could be done but the main political parties do not have the appetite for it as so much of their support comes from boomers and other mortgage holders and landlords. ideologically neo liberal hegemony still prevails.
Flat Packs, tiny houses for homeless, emergency housing in every town and city, apartments and houses for life or transferable between tenants for work, study or vacation could all be done but not until new gens stand up, get organised and fight for it.
INDEED TIGER KIWI BUILD MORE MIDDLE CLASS SOCIALISM AND A SUBSIDY TO DEVELOPERS…and even at that it’s an ineffective failure.
For how many years will we state the obvious, build WAY more houses for the homeless before we realise this IS the GAME that all out Govts are playing ON PURPOSE. And then lets consider TraitorKeys MASS immigration to make this EVEN WORSE. But hey, let’s give him a Knighthood. Like Tony (war criminal) Blair.
Act like you care, BUT do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to change the gravy-train that is the NZ rental market. Aka the debt-slaves company store.
Look at their deeds NOT what they say (or LIE when their lips are moving).
Wake up sheeple, OR JUST ACCEPT we live in a non-democratic slave colony and get used to it.
Oh no, have I been fooled all along? Maybe she is a liar? https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/08/jacinda-ardern-not-convinced-by-ghost-home-concerns-despite-data-showing-40-000-vacant-in-auckland.html
Not a liar but one of the better, if not the best, deflectors in any Govt we’d had for a long while.
It maybe a case of if she admits ghost houses are a problem then she’ll also have to answer the question as to why so many of her state houses are empty. We have 11 properties that we share a boundary with in a middle income Akl suburb, one is a reserve, 2 are private houses the rest are state houses. 3 of the staties have been empty since they all had massive dollar repairs, upgrades and just general maintenance.
A 5 beddy had to have it’s floors replaced as the tenants used the old one in their BBQ after they had run out of doors and door frames to burn. It was empty for nearly a year until the rebuild and has been empty since, it’s just on 2 years now. Next door to that is a duplex with one side rebuilt and sitting empty, next door to that another 1/2 a duplex, both are 3 beds, is also had the glamour upgrade but still sit empty.
Been there over 25 years so have seen the Govts work/action around state housing first hand. That also means we have seen which Govts treat the tenants and houses the best. I can say with hand on heart it is certainly not the current one.
There are no empty private dwellings around the area I know of, which isn’t to say there are none, just none I’ve seen.
All one has to do is monitor the amount of ships coming our way for logs to where the housing problem lays. It doesnt need to be as expensive as it is to build houses here but with log exports and a lack of a Capital Gains tax, the govt continues to let the rich get richer and everybody else suffer.
Reviews of do nothing. Politicians just give you long winded bunches of words that dont actually mean anything or do anything and all we see is rich people getting richer. Labour is National.
Not sure it would be legal to evict a tenant from apartments based on being a social housing tenant.
How do the Body Corporate even know, unless something the tenant is doing has raised concerns?
I’m assuming there is a lot more to this.
Part of the issue is that all tenants need to respect other people living next to them and look after themselves and the property within the rules of tenancy. Some tenants can’t do that.
Tenants not surprised over Christchurch housing complex homicide
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/120088313/tenants-not-surprised-over-christchurch-housing-complex-murder
Christchurch tenants ordered to pay landlord $10,000 after damage, meth use, robbery, abandonment
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/christchurch-tenants-ordered-to-pay-landlord-10000-after-damage-meth-use-robbery-abandonment/TFJPYCOLISIUXX7U7DIM3GOX6Q/
Squalid: Tenant to pay landlord $3K after leaving rental property unlivable
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/squalid-tenant-to-pay-landlord-3k-after-leaving-rental-property-unlivable/KXV2MAAABGMMTDDSQ4G2BNNFMQ/
Bay of Plenty family fears they’ll never sell home after buyers put off by Kāinga Ora tenants next door
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/04/bay-of-plenty-family-fears-they-ll-never-sell-home-after-buyers-put-off-by-k-inga-ora-tenants-next-door.html
Housing New Zealand tenants living in fear that evicted tenant could return
https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/86384813/housing-new-zealand-tenants-living-in-fear
Part of why nothing can be done is that the renter advocates on the left can’t acknowledge some tenants are antisocial and what to do with anti social tenants who remove the quality of life for other tenants who are scared for their lives and have belongings taken.
I’m all in favour for looking at preventing antisocial tenants but that probably starts a lot earlier when they are children, probably did not happen overnight. All the social issues in NZ are often highly related and NZ’s short term neoliberal thinking in isolation from results is a big part of the problem. Neoliberalism is all about deferring responsibility and costs and making the social and financial costs of poor policy, fall on someone else’s watch. When things go wrong, nothing happens, but write a report about it.
If tenants are destroying housing etc that is one less house to rent out for the next tenant.
It does not help to advocate to burn down empty houses as that is one less house and we know that the woke have no sense of humour and don’t understand irony or hyperbole. Thus like Dumb lives Matter might start doing burning down housing.
Rents are low in Auckland CBD at present, as after Covid, finally so many cheap rentals for those complaining about high rents.
Auckland Central from bond data show lower rents $360 p/w – higher rents $550 p/w.
The people who used to live in the CBD 20 years ago have been pushed out by poor planning of poorly designed apartments, high body corporate and scam leasehold fees (many a scam and should not be legal) and the Ponzi’s have moved on into other areas of NZ and thus the leftie dream goal, to have the low rents and lower apartment prices seems to be happening.
Of course this seems to be not what people expected as they are then complaining about awful the CBD is now, with high crime and a lack of atmosphere.
Maybe not trying to socially engineer demographics, and make planning so appalling with a lack of amenity in NZ planning rules has come down to, the middle class won’t live there and social housing tenants don’t want to live next to antisocial housing tenants just like everyone else.
Making antisocial housing tenants live in apartments is also a big risk for everyone else as Meth, fire and so forth a much bigger problem in a building with 1000’s of people affected.
snz list of social housing properties burnt down by meth lab fires please.
the main failings is initial choice of tenants and the stupid ‘no evictions policy’ but that’s a failure of administration not concept.
High levels of supply of rentals – my guess is that the neoliberals (all political parties) will push another 1 million people into NZ to make sure that housing demand stays high and prices rise.
“I never thought the day would come when several property agents would tell me (a 24-year-old renter in Auckland) I can be fussy about choosing a flat. ”
https://www.renews.co.nz/empty-viewings-and-cheaper-rent-how-my-flat-hunt-went-in-2022/?fbclid=IwAR03OkOH1KegluNes4WIoK0WvXZpFi0NCvyRSf8KLu0xZAo7wT_XmELITpc
NZ housing shortages have always been about demand not supply.
You might have noticed over the past few weeks I’ve been commenting/posting about eke Panuku and it’s Chairman Paul Majureys declaration that Auckland isn’t in the business of providing Social Housing. They’re in the business of public private partnerships for housing development(s) to onsell to investors so then they can access the IRR subsidies. Or ‘Housing Choice’ as he puts it.
This is where Panukus & Blackrock Inc worth $10t and the largest investor in public housing globally roads meet. The NZSuperannuation Fund!
Black Rock have been at the trough since 2013 and Panuku recently.
The only housing developments that seem to get the greenlight are Occam and some iwi companies which the chairman of Panuku is a director of, or chair of or both. He has a relationship as a developer with Occam.
So a large chunk of the 27,000 people who are currently living in motel rooms are probably not going to be able to afford to live in Auckland I guess?
Auckland council has knocked back at least 4 major developers’ developments of more than 10,000 affordable houses in the last six months.
One can only arrive at the conclusion that Aucklanders are getting set up?
Blackrock Inc is a vulture capitalist and have set up shop already in Auckland.
With $10.8b of debt, at a level of 257% of revenue. This is unsustainable?
Or is there something else on the cards? A government bailout? Or a Commissioner getting lined up for a takeover?
Something has gotta give? Ay?
Panuku, corruption plus, all rubber stamped by local and central government, paid for by taxpayers and nobody cares.
I’ve thought for around one decade now that there should be rent controls in all urban areas, and lenient lending criteria to savers on low incomes. Banks are able to hedge their lending risk with insurance, so there’s no excuses, really. It doesn’t mean that everyone on a low income would be eligible for a home loan, as the applicants would have to meet certain lending requirements but I do believe that a mandatory percentage of all bank loans going to low income borrowers would be reasonable and acceptable.