While the National led government sits idly by twiddling its thumbs and idiots call for the death penalty for Chinese drug mules, the P epidemic continues to grow exponentially.Not content with just destroying the lives of addicts and their families, the widespread P problem is also making law abiding citizens sick thanks to dishonest landlords and real estate agents who fail to inform them their potential home is contaminated.
Today, the NZ Herald reported:
Exclusive: Landlords omitting P history to protect property values
Some landlords with meth-contaminated houses are avoiding telling local authorities to ensure their houses don't lose value.
The investors say having the information on their property's council file - even if the chemical residue is later removed - carries stigma, and will put buyers off. While the behaviour is not illegal, one home-owner's association said it was "unscrupulous to say the least" not to report contamination, as that meant any future owners or tenants were denied access to the property's full history.
"I think a lot of landlords are scurrying around trying to keep things under the radar because they don't want to spend the money to properly remediate a contaminated home," said Home Owners and Buyers Association (Hobanz) president John Gray.
"But there's a line that has to be drawn somewhere."
This is just another really good reason houses should have a warrant of fitness that also lists any current or historic P contamination issues.
The Herald first found evidence of the trend in online property investors' forums, where owners were discussing how to get the council to help evict tenants without the contamination going on a Land Information Memorandum (Lim) report.
That doesn’t help people who just want to rent a clean and safe house though. Most renters aren’t going to acquire a LIM report and will be none the wiser that the house they’re paying the earth for is in some cases unfit for habitation.
Everybody knows that you cannot trust most real estate agents and landlords to do the right thing, so why isn’t the government stepping in to make sure people aren’t being rented or sold P contaminated houses?
Instead, National is just changing the current guidelines to rules and at the same time tripling the level of contamination at which Police and Councils need to make a file note. That note disappears once remediation measures are undertaken, even though it’s information renters and potential buyers have a right to know.
When the real estate industry cannot be trusted to regulate itself; the government should step in and do the right thing. When the government refuses to do the right thing… they should be voted out.
