DianaVB

Hello there,

Two months to go and getting excited! I'm sure there will have been posts about this before, but I can't quite find the right thing.

We are arriving in Auckland at the beginning of September and have accommodation booked for the first month. We are hoping to find a longer term renal as soon as possible and want to be prepared.

We own a house in the UK, so haven't rented for a long time and are not really sure what's required in terms of references etc. We'll have proof of employment and bank statements to show we've got the dosh, but what about character / personal references? Do we need things like that? As we haven't got a landlord at the moment to get references from, should we try and get something from our employers, or even landlords from many years ago (might be tricky).

Any other advice on dealing with NZ letting agents and what kind of documents / info they might want? Any common rip-offs to to aware off? Apart from houses being damp, badly insulated and having no heating.

Thanks for any advice in advance!

janiejones

I got my old boss, who'd been to my house, to give us a character reference which mentioned the good condition of our property. Maybe you have a friend who could do something similar? We rented privately though, not through an agent.

Engel

You can open a NZ bank account in advance and transfer some funds in before you arrive. Then you have bank details to pay the bond and a direct debit which will be a big plus.

moonie2011

Be aware that the contract you will sign will be a fixed term tenancy agreement, this means that you are not allowed to exit the agreement within that time.
When we arrived and rented we signed a 7mth contract, the agent didn't explain the fixed term bit, 4 mths later, not liking renting we bought a house, told our agents we wanted to leave to be told no, you signed to stay for 7mths!!! Eventually we did leave as we found another tenant, paid money to swap the agreements over and we could leave. However friends of ours are in the same position but the landlords flatly refuse to let them leave, it has been to tenancy tribunal who has refused to let them break the contract. They now own a house and a rental for another 6mths (

DianaVB

Thanks for the tips. We'll try and get a personal reference from an employer and fingers crosses we'll find something nice quickly.