How can i help?

I need some helpful advice.
I have a friend, she has two girls, 2yrs and 13mths.
She has recently in the last two months seperated from her violent abusive partner. She has a protection order against him. She has custody of the girls but she has an order preventing her from leaving Christchurch. All her family is up north so she has noone here.

I went and picked her up (and her girls) and took her to Harcourts to sign her tenancy as it renews on friday. She had this in her and her ex's name, she gets there and finds he has gone in and signed it and transferred it into his name and she has untill saturday to move out! How can he do this and how can harcourts do that? Her name is on it too!

So now shes going to have nowhere to live, she has no car, no nothing. She owns everything in the house but no way to move it or anywhere to move too.

I want to help but not sure i can. Im going to get a few things for her tomorrow as shes struggling abit. He does not pay child support but she has applied to IRD to chase him for it, but that can take weeks.

Her partner refused to let her cancel her benefit when he moved in and she got done for recieving a benefit and working, something shes not proud of but now owes WINZ alot of money, they wont help her out with a bond on a new place either.

Any ideas?



Edited by KylahsMum

She is already dealing with them or has dealt with them they helped her get a protection order, but she thought she was going to be ok, its this whole house drama that has really tipped her over the edge.

she could try getting half the bond back thru harcourts, if hes going to be taking over the tenancy then he should at least reinburse her for that.
(excuse spelling)

why does she have an order preventing her leaving town????
surley she could just say that hes making her life hell and it wint stop unless she gos back to palmy??

She may not be able to leave town for reasons such as - it would be preventing access for the father as he may not be able to get to Palmy, or the father raised concerns about her leaving with the children etc. From what I have seen, it's not unusual where the two parties come from two different areas and one party has concerns about being prevented from seeing the children (kind of like a safe guard thing).

I'd get in touch with women's refuge again.  I know they're helping her already and she's already told them the house is fine but I'm sure they're used to dealing with circumstances that change last minute. 

I'd also contact the tenancy tribunal, who I assume the bond is lodged with, and find out her right regarding that and the tenancy in general. 

Contact harcourts too.  They don't have the right to sign over the tenancy to either party without the others permission so contact them and let them know that the tenancy tribunal has been made aware of the "dispute". 

I understand that it's an extremely difficult situation for her, needing to move with no place to go and no way to move her furniture but moving somewhere else, so he doesn't know where she is, maybe good for her.  It could give her a fresh start.  Can you rally friends to assist with moving furniture?

I know that she doesn't want to go to WINZ because of past discrepancies but it would probably be a good idea to get in touch with them and see if they can help.  The worst that can happen is they say no. 

Also get in touch with Housing NZ and see if they can help find emergency housing for her.

Definitely get in touch with citizens advice bureau as they are bound to know of other places to help and can also send along a representative to assist her when dealing with winz, harcourts, housing NZ etc.

Ok i just spoke with TT and they have advised for me to tell her not to leave the property, to lodge a dispute with them regarding her situation and what harcourts have done to her as they cant make her leave. So im going to do that with her today and pay the $20 fee for her So yay her kids and her have somewhere to live for now

Iv printed off every house available for rent on trade me too.

With the protection order he cant come anywhere near her. Protection orders are higher than tresspass so the cops will arrive within minutes to help her. Im calling her on her break to tell her what TT have told me, and i will call harcourts and advise them its been lodged with TT and not to give the key out.

Edited by KylahsMum

God, I'm amazed Harcourts would be so stupid as to do that. Even if the guy didn't like her, did he think that he would get away with it?

You really are a great friend!

The reason he doesnt like her is because while all this mess was going on he turned up at her place without giving notice and it was a mess. She had not had time to clean and was in a bad situation.

When he was my property manager he also done this to me. They had done a roperty check, the only thing he could complain about was i hadnt cleaned the oven, i was heavily pregnant and couldnt use the stuff because its poisenous, DF well hes a male, i dont need to explain lol and we just hadnt got round to it. He turned up and went straight into the kitchen and had a look.

I agree with Jo, he can't do that.
What is it with tennancy companies, years ago I had an inspection and all they could find to complain about was that I hadn't vaccuumed, I'd don't it 3 days prior but obviously not soon enough for them.