April  11th.  2018.

Did you know that the Palmerston North City Council intend to increase the rents of their pensioner flats to  full market rents.The reason being given by our city councillors is that the increases can be ring fenced to construct additional flats,sometime in the future.But why should those  who can least afford it be forced to pay for the construction of new pensioner units?

So make it your business to grab a submission form from the councils office in the Square or go on line,all you have to say is ''Market rents for pensioner flats is not fair'' 

So show your support for the pensioners,submissions have to be in by April 23rd.Now is not the time to be complacent,these are people who have served the city well and don't need to be penalized in this way.

I think this could be the first step to privatize, the councils pensioner flats,they may try to set up a trust and market rents could come in through the trust.The councillors believe pensioners can go to work and income and the increase will be paid,this is not always the case,believe me.

Make your views known to the councillors,after all they work for you whither you own or rent your home.

 The PNCC web page is     pncc.govt.nz 

April 9th 2018

Good to read the report from Consumer NZ 

who support the growing number of tenants and housing agencies who say the need for some form of regulation of property managers is needed now.

As a country New Zealand lags behind other developed countries in this area of property management,there is no regulation of property managers what so ever.You don't need any qualifications to manage rental properties,yet you deal with serious money in rents and have a lot of power and control over tenants lives.

As we mentioned,property managers are regulated in other countries,it is common practice and needs to happen here.Tenants are used to being ignored by property managers and tenants complain to being bullied or threatened with eviction or being blacklisted from ever getting another property. While most tenants / landlords get along.Those landlords who use property managers,have no idea off what is going on in the management of their investment.

So after all  the publicity, lets hope that the government look's at implementing some form of regulation or to be licensed to be a property manager.We will follow this with interest,as tenants are in the majority and there is at long last, a culture of renting developing in New Zealand and there needs to be balance in these housing issues,concerning the wider community.