Newshub reports on Auckland garages being rented out

The Tribunal has given the agent until August to provide evidence Auckland Council has approved the garage for residential use.

“…;if there is no Council approval for the sleep-out to be used for residential purposes, then no rent may be claimed for its use as a residence”.

Newshub’s own investigation shows the former garage is consented only for use as a garage and can’t legally be lived in.

Auckland Council says it has no record of any resource or building consent or any other permit to legally establish a housing unit or sleep out. There is no permit for anything “other than the establishment of the garage”.

The sleepout was converted late in 2014 and has had several tenants since then who have potentially paid thousands in illegal rent.

There was no proper separate power or water meter for the sleepout meaning the tenant in the main house was billed for whatever residents in the garage used.

The Tribunal has already ordered the manager who let the garage, “Debbie” Widharni Iskandar, to pay that money back.

Former tenant Jacine Greaves says tenants in the garage were “desperate vulnerable people who had no other choice, people who had hit rock bottom”.

“She is a predator. That is my word to describe her, she is a predator”.

Ms Iskandar says she manages more than ten properties in the South Auckland suburb of Manurewa.

• Landlords renting out ‘unsafe’ conversions

Newshub is aware at least three of those have garages that have been tenanted, yet according to Auckland Council records none of them is consented for human habitation and can’t legally be lived in.

The prices have ranged from $250 to $560 a week.

Go here to see the Newshub report.