{"id":271910,"date":"2026-02-07T06:14:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T06:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/271910\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T06:14:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T06:14:07","slug":"tribunal-tosses-taiwanese-hwa-hsia-society-rent-claim-over-storage-shed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/271910\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribunal tosses Taiwanese Hwa Hsia Society rent claim over storage shed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The society, which was set up to promote social, cultural, and educational exchange between Taiwanese<\/a> residents and New Zealanders, now insists the \u201ctiny house\u201d or \u201ccabin\u201d has no place on its \u014ct\u0101huhu site and sought an order from the Tenancy Tribunal<\/a> terminating the alleged tenancy and seeking to recover thousands of dollars in rent arrears it says it\u2019s owed.<\/p>\n

But the shed\u2019s owner disputes that there was ever a residential tenancy relationship. Instead, Chen argued the structure was a storage shed, not a dwelling, and therefore fell outside the tribunal\u2019s jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the tribunal agreed.<\/p>\n

According to the tribunal\u2019s recently released decision, the society terminated the tenancy last August and issued a demand for unpaid rent, giving Chen 30 days to remove the structure and clear the arrears. <\/p>\n

But Chen insisted the \u201ccabin\u201d had never been used, or was intended to be used as a residence, and was instead used solely for storage purposes.<\/p>\n

To support her claims, Chen provided photographs of the shed on the society\u2019s property showing the small metal-clad unit filled with boxes and storage items, a non-functional toilet, and no visible kitchen, plumbing, or water connections.<\/p>\n

In his decision, adjudicator Michael Kan found that regardless of whether the structure was described as a shed, a cabin, or a tiny house, the key question was whether the structure constituted \u201cresidential premises\u201d under the Residential Tenancies Act.<\/p>\n

In dismissing the claim, Kan ruled the structure was a shed used for storage, not a \u201cresidential premises\u201d as defined under the act. Therefore, it fell outside the tribunal\u2019s jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

He also denied the society\u2019s request for name suppression, saying there was public interest in publishing the parties\u2019 names, as this appeared to be an internal matter between members of the society that should never have been brought before the tribunal. Instead, he suggested the Disputes Tribunal was a more appropriate forum.<\/p>\n

It was also important that the public understood that the tribunal didn\u2019t have jurisdiction to hear or determine matters that didn\u2019t fall within the definition of \u201cresidential premises\u201d under the act, he said.<\/p>\n

Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently, she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The society, which was set up to promote social, cultural, and educational exchange between Taiwanese residents and New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2741,153740,153739,111,139,69,1523,16401,26639,2935,213,11162,140062,153738,6847],"class_list":["post-271910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-claim","tag-hsia","tag-hwa","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-rent","tag-shed","tag-society","tag-sports","tag-storage","tag-taiwanese","tag-tosses","tag-tribunal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271910","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=271910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}