Rent Arrears Grant

You may be able to get a Rent Arrears Grant if you:

• are a tenant with either:
  • a tenancy under the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA), i.e. you have a formal tenancy agreement, or
  • a tenancy order under the Family Violence Act 2018 or the Property (Relationships) Act 1976
• have overdue rent you need to pay
• may be evicted because you haven't paid your rent, and
• can afford to keep paying rent once the rent arrears are paid.

There are also residency and income criteria you need to meet.

If you don't have a tenancy under the RTA, we may still be able to help pay the rent you owe. Call us on 0800 559 009

Residency criteria

You must be either:

• getting a benefit from us (e.g. Jobseeker Support), or
• ordinarily resident in New Zealand and either:
  • a New Zealand citizen
  • have a residence class visa under the Immigration Act 2009
  • recognised as a refugee or protected person under the Immigration Act 2009
  • getting the Christchurch Mosque Attacks Assistance, or
  • getting a Special Needs Grant because you came to New Zealand on a temporary visa to be with your New Zealand partner and your relationship ended due to domestic violence.

Income criteria

Getting a Rent Arrears Grant also depends on:

• how much you and your partner earn
• any money or assets you and your partner have.

Income limits

If you’re:	Weekly income (before tax) is less than:
Single	$1,303
Couple without children	$1,921
Couple with children	$2,247
Sole parent, 1 child	$1,776
Sole parent, 2+ children	$2,056

Asset limits

Your assets need to be under a certain limit. Assets include money in the bank, or things like a caravan or second property. They don’t include the things you need for day-to-day living, eg, your home or your car.

If you’re:	Your assets are worth less than:
Single	$8,100
Married, civil union or de facto couple (with or without children) or sole parent	$16,200

How much you get depends on the amount of rent you owe. The most you can get is 4 weeks rent and you'll need to pay it back.

You can only get this payment twice in 12 months, unless there's an exceptional situation outside your control, e.g:

• you haven't been able to work, or earn your usual income, due to an unforeseen serious sickness or injury, or
• you're in a family violence situation.

Call us on 0800 559 009

If you get NZ Super or Veteran's Pension, call Senior Services on 0800 552 002

We may need to book you an appointment either to come in and see us, or a phone appointment. We'll let you know if this is the case.

You'll need to provide proof of the amount of rent arrears. This could be a letter or notice showing how much overdue rent you need to pay, from either, e.g:

• your landlord
• the Tenancy Tribunal, or
• Tenancy Services.

If you have a shared tenancy

If you share your tenancy with:

• your partner, you can apply for your portion and your partner's portion of the rent arrears. Or your partner can apply separately for their portion.
• someone else, you can only apply for your portion of the rent arrears. The other person will need to apply separately for their portion of the rent arrears.

If your application’s approved, we’ll pay the rent arrears directly to the landlord.

We’ll check if your landlord’s already a supplier with us. If they’re not, we’ll ask them to register as a supplier by completing a ‘Supplier Registration Form’. This is so we can make the payment to them.