{"id":149333,"date":"2025-11-23T07:52:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T07:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/149333\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T07:52:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T07:52:07","slug":"tenancy-tribunal-orders-auckland-landlord-darren-williams-to-pay-tenants-at-two-properties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/149333\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenancy Tribunal orders Auckland landlord Darren Williams to pay tenants at two properties"},"content":{"rendered":"

They told the tribunal he made baseless accusations and racist comments such as \u201cgo to Mumbai\u201d, \u201cwhy did you vote for National?\u201d, \u201cnow go to Winston Peters\u201d, along with other derogatory remarks about the tenants<\/a>\u2019 parents and their nationality.<\/p>\n

The tenants also claimed Williams came to the house without permission, took a pair of expensive slippers and pot plants and threatened to enter the property when they weren\u2019t home. <\/p>\n

In defence, Williams said the pot plants caused the deck to rot in winter and denied taking the slippers. <\/p>\n

Dedhia and Sinder provided the tribunal<\/a> with evidence of all the communications between the parties, which contained references to multiple nationalities. <\/p>\n

Tribunal adjudicator Joon Yi said in a decision released in September the messages from the landlord \u201ccan be best described as rambling accusations and conspiracy theory-type remarks\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite this, Yi said he didn\u2019t order Williams to pay compensation to his tenants for the messages because he was suffering from a \u201csomewhat evident mental condition\u201d at the time. <\/p>\n

Yi did order him to pay $500 for the pot plants and slippers for what he called a \u201cserious invasion to the tenant\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018Bizarre\u2019 remarks <\/p>\n

In another decision from the tribunal, which was released this week, Williams was found to have made remarks with a racial undertone to a tenant at a property he owned in Beach Haven. <\/p>\n

The tenant moved into the rental in August 2024 and paid $700 a week. In March, Williams advised the rent would increase to $765 per week. When the tenant told him that was illegal under the Residential Tenancies Act, he agreed to delay the rise until August. <\/p>\n

In April, the power tripped at the property. The tenant left for safety and told the landlord, who, according to the decision, then accused the other man of causing the damage and made \u201cbizarre\u201d remarks that caused him distress.<\/p>\n

When the tenant requested an invoice for a water bill he had paid his landlord for, Williams responded with \u201cmore strange comments, including one implying racial undertone\u201d, according to the tribunal\u2019s decision. <\/p>\n

Williams sent the tenant a picture of a screw and demanded an explanation, demanded money and then threatened to take his dishwasher away.<\/p>\n

After his tenant reminded him that a landlord must give 24 hours\u2019 notice before entering a property, the decision says Williams sent more derogatory and racially suggestive messages.<\/p>\n

Within a week, Williams entered the property without permission and allegedly threw the tenant\u2019s belongings out, including a $4000 computer. <\/p>\n

The tenant applied to be released from his fixed-term contract at a hearing held last month. He provided photos of his belongings on the street, along with Williams holding his desktop computer. <\/p>\n

The tribunal adjudicator said Williams didn\u2019t disagree with his tenant\u2019s version of events. He instead said he wished to apologise and was suffering mental health issues at the time. <\/p>\n

Yi, who handled both tenants\u2019 applications, said while he took into account the landlord\u2019s mental health, it didn\u2019t completely excuse his behaviour. <\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough this explains his bizarre acts, it does not do so to the extent of it completely excusing his actions,\u201d Yi said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe effect of the acts of the landlord had made the tenant fear for continued stay and had personal belongings thrown out through an extreme invasion of privacy. The perplexing messages and emails with reference to the tenant\u2019s race were such that it amounted to harassment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yi ordered Williams pay his tenant $1500 for exemplary damages for breaching the tenant\u2019s quiet enjoyment and $3000 for disposing of the tenant\u2019s goods.<\/p>\n

In 2020, Williams was ordered to pay more than $6000 to two tenants after unlawfully entering the Birkdale property and taking away the front door<\/a>, damaging or causing the tenants\u2019 possessions to be wilfully damaged and serving them with an unlawful trespass notice.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawat\u016b, covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They told the tribunal he made baseless accusations and racist comments such as \u201cgo to Mumbai\u201d, \u201cwhy did…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1117,1975,51,1558,8414,79800,42,8454,10054,60677,22098,43,6848,2744,1356,69724,22429,99885,13917,22400,17292,61,40,38,41,39,6847,1237,13971],"class_list":["post-149333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-accused","tag-at","tag-auckland","tag-been","tag-couple","tag-darren","tag-headlines","tag-including","tag-landlord","tag-messages","tag-mumbai","tag-news","tag-orders","tag-pay","tag-properties","tag-racist","tag-rental","tag-subjecting","tag-telling","tag-tenancy","tag-tenants","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-tribunal","tag-two","tag-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}