Your tenant missed their rent last week but they’ve always caught up in the past, so you let it go. Then you notice that they didn’t catch up and have missed another week! Cursing yourself for being slack, you phine them but there’s no reply. Worried now, you go and visit them to see what the problem is. Their car is gone and the house looks empty! Visions of lost rent and the hassle of finding new tenants flood your mind. Now is a good time to brush up on the procedure for entering an abandoned property!
Assuming your runaway tenant is not cooperative and really doesn’t want to be found, your first step is to check what information you already have on them.
Prevention is better than cure!
Hopefully, when you selected the tenant, you collected some information that will assist in finding them. (See “How to choose a good tenant“) Getting their full legal name and date of birth is essential to help identify them through the court process but often the quickest way of finding them is by ringing their next of kin. Often they won’t be aware that their relatives have done a runner and will happily help you find them to “return some important paperwork”. If you’re really cunning, your application form will ask for next of kin as an alternate contact address, so that it can be easily used for collection purposes. Likewise, if you have their employment details, you could always wander down and see if they’re still working there. You can also check enrolment forms, the white pages, ask neighbours and even put something in your local investors group newsletter looking for your “missing friends”.
Chasing beneficiaries
If none of the details you already have helps you find them, Government departments will expect you to try other avenues before applying for address information from the Department of Building and Housing (who request address information from WINZ). This can be a frustratingly slow process but if at first you don’t succeed, try again every few months. If you know the tenant is a beneficiary and WINZ say that they do not have an address, write to WINZ and inform them that the tenant has moved. WINZ require the tenant to supply a current address, so eventually, they should be able to provide one to the DBH through your request for address application.
Should I use a debt collector?
Don’t waste your money! Debt collection agencies will only follow the same process as you would have through the courts and are not interested in representing you at tribunal hearings or examinations. If the debt is relatively small, they will put in very few resources to chase the tenant and once their fee is paid or initial enquiries produce no results, you’ll find they’re no longer interested.
However, one thing that is worth doing for a really hard to find tenant is lodging an address check with Veda. This is a cheap “set and forget” service that will email you the new address of a past tenant that has their credit checked for something like an HP or a loan. I have just had a notification for a tenant that left the country 5 years ago! She is about to get a visit from a court baliff.
Using the Privacy Act
Some landlords have also had success requesting address details from the IRD using the Privacy Act.
“Limits on disclosure of personal information (principle eleven)
An agency that holds personal information shall not disclose the information to a person or body or agency unless the agency believes, on reasonable grounds –
(iv) for the conduct of proceedings before any court or tribunal (being proceedings that have been commenced or are reasonably in contemplation); or”
