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上传时间: 2015-01-19 浏览次数:1057次
Housing fraud investigations 'free up' 180 houses
Mon, Jan 19, 2015
Fraud investigations led to 56 prosecutions and "freed up" 187 state houses for new tenants over 12 months, new figures show.
Housing New Zealand (HNZ), which manages more than 68,000 properties across the country, completed 269 fraud investigations in 2013-14, including 14 related to Christchurch, according to documents obtained under the Official Information Act.
In roughly the same period, nearly 120 tenants were given 90-day eviction notices for anti-social behaviour, such as harassing and intimidating neighbours, loud music and other noise at "unreasonable hours", vehicle nuisance, vandalism, graffiti and rubbish dumping.
In all, 200 tenants were sprung with income-related rent debt, 107 were given 90-day notices, 83 vacated voluntarily and 56 were prosecuted.
The Ministry of Social Development has since taken over responsibility for investigating income-related rent fraud cases.
At September 30 last year HNZ clients owed almost $1.2 million in rent debt, including $99,248 in Christchurch.
HNZ government relations acting manager Rachel Kelly said rent debt levels had "reduced considerably" in the past two years.
"Housing New Zealand takes a proactive approach when tenants fall behind with their rent. We contact tenants immediately and work with them to agree on a repayment plan," she said.
"Where there has been an ongoing issue with the rent payments, debt specialists work one-on-one with individual tenants to ensure payments are made."
A spokesman for HNZ said the only Christchurch tenant issued with a 90-day notice in 2013-14 was the subject of "ongoing complaints involving dogs and anti-social behavior".
"After we could not resolve these issues, HNZ issued a 90-day notice."