Private residential tenancy model agreement: easy read notes

21. Respect for Others

The tenant and anyone living at the property must not be involved in antisocial behaviour at the property.

“Antisocial behaviour” means behaving in a way:

• which causes, or is likely to cause, alarm, upset, nuisance or annoyance; or
• which is harassment.

‘At the property’ includes to other people in the property, any neighbour, any visitor, the landlord or those acting for the landlord or any tradesman.

Examples of antisocial behaviour are:

• making too much noise - including from televisions, CD players, digital media players, radios and musical instruments, DIY or power tools;
• not controlling pets (including allowing them to bark too much) or allowing pets to foul or cause damage to other people’s property or common areas of the property such as the garden;
• allowing visitors to the property to be too noisy;
• vandalising or damaging the property or any part of the common areas or neighbourhood;
• leaving rubbish other than in the bins provided or leaving rubbish out to be picked up on a day when it is not due to be picked up;
• allowing the tenant and/or any other person (including children) living in or using the property to cause a nuisance or annoyance to other people;
• harassing any other tenant or occupier, visitors, neighbours, family members of the landlord or employees of the landlord or agent, or any other person or persons in the house, or neighbourhood, for whatever reason. This includes behaviour due to that person’s race, colour or ethnic origin, nationality, gender, sexuality, disability, age, religion or other belief, or other status;
• using or carrying weapons;
• using, selling, growing, making or supplying unlawful drugs or selling alcohol;
• storing or bringing onto the property any type of unlicensed firearm or firearm ammunition including any replica or decommissioned firearms;
• using the property, or allowing it to be used, for illegal or immoral purposes - an example of an illegal purpose might be for carrying on a business for which local council consents have not been obtained; and
• threatening or assaulting any other tenant or occupier, visitors, neighbours, family members of the landlord or employees of the landlord or agent, or any other person or persons in the house, or neighbourhood, for whatever reason.

The above list of examples does not include every sort of antisocial behaviour. There could be other actions, failures to act or words spoken (or shouted) which would amount to antisocial behaviour.

The landlord can take action against the tenant if there is a breach of the antisocial behaviour clause in the tenancy.

Landlords have a responsibility to try to stop antisocial behaviour taking place. So if the tenant is involved in antisocial behaviour the landlord must do something to try to stop it. This could include:

• investigating complaints about the tenant's behaviour;
• writing to the tenant to explain that the behaviour is causing concern and asking the tenant to stop the behaviour;
• giving advice on how to reduce noise to an acceptable level;
• asking the local council to apply for an Antisocial Behaviour Order or ASBO against the tenant;
• going to court to get an order of the court (called an "interdict") to stop the tenant from behaving in a certain way; and
• warning the tenant that they may be removed from the property if they do not stop the antisocial behaviour.

If the landlord's attempts to deal with antisocial behaviour do not work, the landlord can ask the local council to step in to assist. If the antisocial behaviour continues, the landlord may begin the process to evict the tenant.

If a landlord does not try to stop the antisocial behaviour, the local council can serve an Antisocial Behaviour Notice on the landlord ordering the landlord to take action to deal with the problem, for example to evict the tenant, or at least warn the tenant that they may be evicted if they continue to behave in that way.

If the landlord does not do what the local council's Antisocial Behaviour Notice says, then the local council can ask the Court to stop rent payments to the landlord or to give the local council control of the property.

If a tenant is affected by other people's antisocial behaviour, the tenant should keep a written record of what happens, each time it happens, with dates and times. Depending on how bad things are, the tenant should contact:

• the nearest Citizens' Advice Bureau or the Antisocial Behaviour team at the local authority - both of which can give the tenant advice on the tenant's rights and what might be the best action for the tenant to take (which could be to contact the police); or
• the local authority’s antisocial behaviour team; or
• the police - who can take action to stop certain behaviours.