My fixed term lease ends in 18 days and my property manager just said that we have to sign for another 12 months and the rent is being increased. This doesn't feel legal, I should have more warning than this as I was under the impression we would move to periodic lease after the fixed term.

It seems they have to give 60 days notice for a rent increase so I might have that on my side but im really concerned about the fixed term because i dont know if i want to live here for another 12 months.

I'm gonna spend the next 2 weeks trying to line up some alternative places to live because I dont want to give the landlord the satisfaction of a $25 rent increase. Nah im leaving and you are going to lose that money from having an empty house.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Was it signed after Feb 2021? They may not be able to kick you out at all. See the handy tool here (make sure you choose landlord, to see landlord rules): https://www.tenancy.govt.nz/ending-a-tenancy/giving-notice-to-end-tenancy

Labour made a lot of changes to make rental rules less landlord-biased.

Edit: Sorry I got distracted and forgot the actual question. They need to give 60 days notice. https://www.tenancy.govt.nz/rent-bond-and-bills/rent/increasing-rent/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The problem isn't that they want to kick me out it's that I don't want to sign another fixed term lease when my current one ends and they don't want to sign a periodic lease.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I don't think they can kick you out straight away if you let it lapse into a periodic tenancy? Hopefully you can find somewhere else within the 2 months before rent can be increased under periodic.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

As per the first tool, you don't have to sign the new lease and it automatically converts to a periodic tenancy. There is no need to sign a periodic tenancy, it happens automatically (so long as the last agreement was signed after Feb 2021).

They can still put up the rent, but only by giving 60 days notice and only if they haven't done it in the last 12 months.

In any case, you might want to leave, in which case you need to give at least 28 days notice (and it can't end before the end of the fixed term). You might want to stay, in which case you can just not sign anything, it automatically converts to periodic tenancy, but 60 days after they give notice the rent can go up (the fixed term ending has no relevance on this - they still can't do it earlier than 60 days).