Matt Crockett: Kāinga Ora chief executive on the company's new approach to tackling rent debt

Kāinga Ora's hoping more tenants will stay on top of rent after it's written off debts. 

It's announced a tougher stance on rental debt - and will end tenancies for people who skip rent with no attempt to get back on track.  

But it also says it'll forgive and reduce debt for consistently paying customers owing more than 12 weeks’ rent.

Chief executive Matt Crockett says the debt otherwise becomes too daunting for tenants to tackle. 

"We are going to manage it more closely, earlier, so that we never have customers that have more than 12 weeks. This is about cleaning up the situation we've got at the moment and resetting to move forward with a more pragmatic approach."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Caying of Order cracking down on tenants who aren't paying
their rent, but also at the same time going to
wipe about half of the debt they currently owed and
rent arears. The state Housing agency will start evicting tenants
have more than twelve weeks rent outstanding and aren't making
an effort to repay their debt or keeping in contact
with the agency. Matt Crockett is Coying Order's chief executive.

(00:21):
He's with me this evening.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Good evening, Good evening, Ryan, how are you good?

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Thank you. We'll start with the wiping of the renter rears. First,
Why are you wiping basically eight million dollars in rent hode.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah. What we want to do here is incentivize our
customers to get onto a repayment plan. And for many
of the customers that have like long we have about
two thousand customers who have more than twelve weeks, it
just becomes too daunting to even deal with it, and
it's a disincentive to engage. So this is about incentivizing
them to engage and lowering the debt to a level

(00:53):
they can actually repay you realistically.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
But aren't you incentivizing them by wiping the debt for
anything that's more than twelve weeks and sent advising them
to get to more than twelve weeks, so it gets
wiped again.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
No, because with the go forward policy, we're not going
to allow anyone to go beyond twelve weeks, and we're
going to intervene and manage it more closely earlier so
that we never have customers who get more than twelve weeks.
So this is about cleaning up the situation we've got
at the moment and resetting to move forward with a
more pragmatic approach.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
So anyone who gets to twelve weeks and they haven't
paid their rent for twelve weeks, you'll start the eviction process.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, and will it be engaging with them earlier than that.
So obviously when someone misses their rent payment, will be
discussing why, and as long as they're engaging and moving
towards a repayment plan, that's fine. But if they're not
engaging or they're not forming a repayment plan, then we
will actually issue a Section fifty six notice and eventually
take it to the residential Tribunal to actually have the

(01:53):
tendency terminated. We want to avoid that and will wherever
we can, but our tenants have to come to the
party and pay their rent.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Right so that this only starts after twelve weeks or
are you saying that process could start, you know, after
a couple of weeks of missed rent.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, it will start earlier, so that by the time
a tenancy is terminated there won't be more than twelve weeks.
We'll do everything we can to avoid getting to that point,
but we will not allow the tendency to go beyond
that point.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Was the sustaining tenancies policy of the previous government as
ridiculous as it seems in the press release that you've
put out today. You know, you went from about three
million dollars in rent areas to twenty million dollars by
the beginning of last year. This is from twenty nineteen
to the beginning of last year. Part of the problem,
you said, is sustaining tenancies. In other words, you weren't

(02:40):
kicking enough people out. You weren't being hard enough on this.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah. Well, I think we have to remember that during
that period we had the COVID pandemic, we had the
cost of living that came after that, and as part
of that there was the policy of the day was
the sustaining tenancies. And you know, in hindsight, those boundaries
not being clear have led to that growing and this
has been a consequence of that, and we're now dealing
to that and just coming up with a clearer, go

(03:06):
forward set of policies that everyone can manage to, including
our tenants.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Matt, thank you for that, Matt Crocket, Chief executive at
Caying at Order. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
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