The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) held a confidential mediation with Brent and Kerrie Matthews — the shareholders of East Coast Holdings Otago Ltd — after the MBIE’s tenancy compliance and investigations team (TCIT) alleged multiple breaches of healthy homes standards affecting 33 tenancies across five of the Matthewses’ boarding houses.
The MBIE’s decision to examine the Matthewses’ compliance was sparked by a fatal fire in one of the Matthewses’ boarding houses in 2022.
The mediation led to an agreement between the MBIE and the Matthewses and their company, which the tribunal adjudicator said was "in full and final settlement of all matters raised by MBIE in the five applications against the respondent".
As part of the settlement, the Matthewses agreed to pay $33,000 in exemplary damages and costs and the MBIE "undertakes that it will not make any proactive media releases about the settlement".
The ODT used the Official Information Act to extract more information about the MBIE’s application to the tribunal. It revealed the MBIE had sought much higher damages — up to a maximum $7200 for each of the 33 tenancies alleged to have been breached across the five houses.
Alleged findings by the TCIT included no heating in a communal area, some broken and boarded-up windows, ineffective spouting, rotten cladding and a missing hallway ceiling.
The MBIE said its investigation into the Matthewses had stopped them running boarding houses. Its national investigations manager, Brett Wilson, said he could not comment on the MBIE agreeing not to make a proactive press release about the details of the investigation or the damages agreed as mediation was confidential.
The Matthewses still own and run a multi-occupancy building in Dunedin.
The MBIE said its investigations into this building were ongoing and the building — which has the appearance of a motel with individual doors facing the street — was not being investigated as a boarding house.
Mr Matthews refused to comment, and would not say how he would describe his multi-occupancy building.
Last year, the ODT spoke to multiple homeless people in Dunedin boarding houses run by a number of different landlords, finding some very poor living conditions and dire social needs.
At the time, some homeless people pointed the ODT to Mr Matthews as an owner of boarding houses in the city and the Matthewses’ company was listed as a boarding house provider in a Ministry of Social Development (MSD) accommodation guide handed out to homeless people.
