{"id":389932,"date":"2026-04-21T05:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T05:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/389932\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T05:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T05:34:12","slug":"ai-tells-tenant-she-should-ask-for-40000-tribunal-hands-her-80-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/389932\/","title":{"rendered":"AI tells tenant she should ask for $40,000 – tribunal hands her $80"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat we received was a total of 215 pages, made up of the application, evidence, photographs, and a 101-page written report outlining the claim and breaking down the costs that should be awarded to her. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe basis of the claim was that the pH level of the water was at a level that made it dangerous to drink. There were two hearings, one remote and one in person.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn April 2, the adjudicator published the Tribunal order. The tenant was awarded a grand total of $80 for the inconvenience of the dryer.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said excessively long, seemingly AI-generated claims<\/a> like this put pressure on staff as well as the owners of the property.<\/p>\n

\u201c[That] was probably the first one, and we\u2019re thinking this looks very, very complex. Then you start to see two or three more come through asking for really big amounts, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 and they\u2019re all set out in the same format. It just becomes quite clear that it\u2019s AI-generated.<\/p>\n

\u201cA tenant may have a grievance, they put it together, and, you know, in good old days they\u2019d probably go to somebody like a tenancy union or a tenant advocate, and at least could have a conversation with them, but AI in some cases is just giving them information which is just not being verified. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they\u2019re probably getting very excited about what they think they can get, and they submit it in. And it\u2019s started to cause a few problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Tenancy Tribunal<\/a> adjudicators were having to go through all the pages of evidence and it slowed the process.<\/p>\n

Faulkner said some claims did not have merit and others were exorbitant.<\/p>\n

Landlords submit the bulk of Tenancy Tribunal applications, commonly for rent arrears. <\/p>\n

Faulkner said these cases often did not need to be dealt with via a hearing and the tribunal could speed up the rate at which it heard cases by dealing with them remotely.<\/p>\n

Sarina Gibbon, director at Tenancy Advisory, said it was true that cases were being lodged that were more complex and sometimes meritless.<\/p>\n

She said it was probably another stage in the evolution of technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the overall system in terms of the common challenges we have now which is to make the tribunal pipeline flow more effectively and minimise wait time so genuine applications are not having to wait months and months and months to get a hearing, in that sense having a very primitive grasp of AI is not helping.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if you take a step back and consider the overall intent of a tenancy-specific tribunal, which is really set up to promote cheap and expedited justice or dispute resolution \u2026 if AI enables more applicants to put forward applications, is that helpful? Yeah, I think it\u2019s helpful. It\u2019s serving justice and giving access to justice to more people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see a problem with AI as such, I think this is a reflection of simply that the technology is just so new and we\u2019re still such naive and primitive users that we\u2019re grasping with what this technology means. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo right now what is happening is a lot of people are engaging with AI with very little knowledge of the RTA themselves. So they\u2019re buying into AI hallucination, they\u2019re buying into this tremendous amount of bloat that AI produces.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a lover of technology, over time I\u2019m confident that AI is going to get us to a point where it\u2019s going to be, it\u2019s going to be a help rather than a hindrance.\u201d<\/p>\n

It comes after the Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman warned last week that people should fact-check the information AI was giving them when they made complaints.<\/p>\n

In one example seen by the IFSO Scheme, a Google AI summary suggested that insurance claim decisions are \u201cfrequently overturned\u201d when consumers complained, and that \u201cup to 80 or 90 per cent of cases can result in success if people persist\u201d.<\/p>\n

Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman Karen Stevens said that was misleading.<\/p>\n

She said complaints that escalated were often complex and stressful, and not always able to be resolved in the consumer\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n

She said AI responses could make the process more frustrating for people when reality did not match their expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile AI can be very useful for general information, it can sometimes oversimplify complex policy wording, miss key exclusions, and rely on overseas information that doesn\u2019t apply in New Zealand. We\u2019ve also seen instances of AI hallucinating previous cases and using them as examples. This can result in it giving incorrect advice,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen complaints which are 300 pages long. But more words aren\u2019t necessarily better. Clear information about what has gone wrong for someone is much more useful than multiple pages referencing legislation and case law.\u201d<\/p>\n

– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat we received was a total of 215 pages, made up of the application, evidence, photographs, and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[75017,88233,365,40923,138,813,2082,10046,1364,111,139,69,20863,3271,812,6642,10050,6847],"class_list":{"0":"post-389932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-75017","9":"tag-88233","10":"tag-ai","11":"tag-ask","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-edmunds","14":"tag-for","15":"tag-hands","16":"tag-her","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz","20":"tag-she","21":"tag-should","22":"tag-susan","23":"tag-tells","24":"tag-tenant","25":"tag-tribunal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389932","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=389932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}