Making a complaint about a CHP
How to make a complaint about a landlord
The Tenancy Services website has information to help tenants address problems with their landlord, including using mediation or going to the Tenancy Tribunal if matters can’t be resolved. Free advice is available from Tenancy Services on 0800 836 262.
Tenancy Services(external link)
If you’re a tenant with a complaint about a registered community housing provider (CHP), we encourage you to use all available, lawful methods to resolve the matter with them before approaching us.
CHPs must have processes in place to resolve disputes with tenants, and you should use these processes first. The rights and obligations of landlords and their tenants are outlined in the Residential Tenancies Act 1986.
Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (New Zealand Legislation)(external link)
Your rights and responsibilities (Tenancy Services)(external link)
If you’re not happy with how the landlord handles your complaint, you can talk to Tenancy Services and consider seeking a formal decision from the Tenancy Tribunal if you believe that your landlord has breached the Residential Tenancies Act 1986.
Things to consider before making a complaint
Any person can make a written complaint about a registered CHP to Community Housing Regulatory Authority if they believe the CHP has breached the eligibility criteria or performance standards.
Before you make a complaint:
- Find out if they are a registered CHP
- Check whether the conduct may amount to a breach of the eligibility criteria for registration or a breach of the performance standards.
Performance standards and guidelines
What to include with your complaint
To help us to properly consider your complaint, please provide this information along with your written complaint:
- Your name and contact details
- A brief description of the matter that has led to the complaint, including relevant dates, places, and times
- Copies of any relevant documentation and other supporting information
- Details of which performance standard or eligibility criteria you believe have been breached.
What matters justify a complaint?
The types of issues that may justify a complaint include conduct by a registered CHP or its personnel that:
- shows the CHP’s management is unsafe, inefficient, or ineffective
- is unfair, unresponsive, or lacking in transparency in dealing with tenants
- does not meet relevant property condition standards
- is serious wrongdoing that has the potential to damage the reputation of the community housing sector.
The performance standards are minimum standards of systems and processes that a CHP must have in place when providing tenancy services, managing property and assets, and managing its finances.
Complaints we won’t investigate
We prioritise complaints involving systemic, serious or ongoing failures to comply with the performance standards. We may not investigate specific tenant complaints. Tenancy Services and the Tenancy Tribunal remain the appropriate places to address individual breaches of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 that require a specific resolution.
We don’t investigate complaints that are:
- considered frivolous or vexatious, including complaints about trivial matters of little weight or importance or with no sound basis
- not about a registered CHP
- that clearly does not amount to a registered CHP’s failure to comply with the eligibility criteria or performance standards.
Advocacy services
If you need help to make a complaint to us about a registered CHP, you can ask the Citizens Advice Bureau.
Freephone 0800 367 222
Citizens Advice Bureau(external link)
Alternatively, you can contact your nearest Community Law Centre
Community Law Centre(external link).
You can also ask the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner for assistance to make a complaint.
Freephone 0800 11 22 33 and email: hdc@hdc.org.nz.
Health and Disability Commissioner(external link)
Confidentiality
Under our legislation, we must provide information about your complaint to the community housing provider. You may request that your identity as a complainant be kept confidential and we will make every effort to do so. In some circumstances your identity may already be obvious, or it may be necessary to disclose your identity to investigate fairly and effectively. We will seek your consent to disclose your identity wherever possible and ensure all information related to the compliant is handled securely and only shared with those directly involved in the investigation.
Please note that if you do not give use permission to identify you to the CHP, this may hinder our ability to investigate your complaint further.
Hearing back about your complaint
We’ll acknowledge receipt of your written complaint within five working days.
We will consider whether the complaint relates to an alleged failure by the CHP to meet any of the eligibility criteria or performance standards, and then notify you and the CHP whether we’ll be investigating the complaint.
If we decide to investigate, our investigation must be completed within 20 working days from the time the complaint is received. If the investigation can’t be completed within that time, we’ll let you know in writing about the delay, the reasons why, and the new time we are working to.
We may contact you to seek additional information. We may also contact other people who can provide information relevant to the investigation.
Throughout the complaints process, we may request additional information from you to assist the investigation and can require the CHP to supply information or produce documents for evidence that a failure has been remedied.
Natural justice
We’ll investigate the complaint by observing the principles of natural justice. This means we’ll act fairly and without bias and give CHPs, who may be adversely affected by our investigation powers and processes, a right to be heard. We’ll give reasons for our decisions.
Notification of decision and follow up
As soon as practicable after investigating the complaint, we’ll notify you and the CHP of the outcome in writing. If applicable, we’ll request that the CHP remedies its policies and procedures that led to the failure.
The complaint must be remedied within a reasonable timeframe of not less than 14 days. If we believe the failure could result in serious harm to any occupants of any house the CHP is responsible for, we can reduce the compliance time.
In the event of a CHPs refusal to remedy identified failures, we may consider suspension or revocation of its registration.