Cabinet minister Nick Smith has asked a new tenancy law compliance unit to consider prosecuting the owner of a Grey Lynn boarding house where council inspectors have found rats and mouldy rooms. Smith, the Minister of Building and Construction, said he also asked his office this morning to refer the case to a tenancy law compliance unit set up last July in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). He said councils were responsible for enforcing the Building Act, but the MBIE unit could prosecute for breaches of housing regulations under tenancy law. He said the new compliance unit already had "a number of prosecutions under way". "There are dozens of boarding houses in Auckland and many of them are substandard.

Source: New Zealand Herald March 10, 2017 23:48 UTC