Landlords have been scapegoated and blamed by Labour for the housing crisis when the real cause is a lack of housing supply.

ACT will end Labour’s war on landlords, including by immediately reinstating mortgage interest deductibility from April 2024.

We will also protect the community from unruly tenants in state housing by making it easier to evict them, putting them at the bottom of the housing waitlist, and giving more deserving families a home.

Labour’s policies of removing mortgage interest deductibility, bright-line test extensions, and Residential Tenancies Act, and other, changes have piled cost and bureaucracy on landlords.

Policies introduced to ‘protect’ tenants have ended up hurting them with higher rents. Real solutions for renters don’t involve pitting tenants against landlords but making it easier to build houses to bring rents down and give tenants more choice.

ACT will:

  • Reinstate interest deductibility for residential landlords with effect from April 2024, rather than phasing it in over three years. ACT’s fully costed Alternative Budget accounts for this.
  • Abolish the bright-line test, a stealth capital gains tax introduced by National.
  • Simplify the process for evicting unruly tenants. ACT would allow landlords to issue a 90-day notice without providing a reason or applying to the Tenancy Tribunal.
  • Reverse Labour’s changes to notice periods for landlords and tenants. ACT will return tenants’ notice period to 21 days (currently 28) and landlords’ to 42 days if they want to sell or move in (currently 90 days if they want to sell or 63 days if they want to move in).
  • Enable landlords to charge a pet bond to increase the number of rentals allowing pets.