Residential Property Managers Bill submission

Summary

• The Salvation Army Te Ope Whakaora supports this Bill and the intention to better regulate property managers the private rental market.
• We recommend strengthening requirements for Te Tiriti based approaches to the training and regulation of property managers. The disproportionate representation of Māori amongst renters and those who are on the margins of the housing market requires standards of cultural competency among property managers and representation in the complaints authority.
• We recommend including tenant representatives to the Complaints Panel to be established under this Bill and that discrimination be added to the criteria for unsatisfactory conduct and misconduct.
• The limited focus of this Bill excludes private landlords and community and public housing providers. Public and community housing providers are subject to considerable regulatory oversight, but this is not the case for private landlords. We recommend urgent priority be given to addressing property management standards among the several hundred large private sector landlords as well as introducing a public register for all the estimated 120,000 landlords in this country.