The Tenancy Tribunal has published new guidelines on how AI tools can be used in tenancy disputes. The guidelines apply to every landlord, including the many landlords across Wellington and Hawke's Bay who manage their own rental property. If you manage your own rental property, you do not have a property manager routinely helping organise the tenancy records and practical information that may be needed if a dispute reaches the Tribunal. That makes it especially important to understand what AI can help with, what it can get wrong, and what you remain responsible for checking yourself. This guide explains what the guidance says and what it means in practice if you are self-managing.
Quick Answers
Can a self-managing landlord use AI for a Tenancy Tribunal case?
Yes. AI may help organise evidence, identify issues to investigate and explain Tribunal procedure. You remain responsible for checking anything you rely on or submit, whether or not you use a property manager.
Do you have to disclose using AI at the Tenancy Tribunal?
Only if asked. If the Tribunal asks whether you used AI to prepare your material, you must say so. If you are unsure whether your use of AI is proportionate, the guidance recommends telling the Tribunal anyway and explaining why you are unsure.
Can AI record or summarise a Tenancy Tribunal hearing?
No. AI tools must not be used to record, transcribe, summarise or analyse a Tribunal hearing or a mediation discussion. This applies whether or not you have a property manager present.
Can you rely on legal cases found by ChatGPT?
Not without checking them first. AI tools can invent cases that do not exist, misstate what a real case decided, or rely on overseas law that does not apply in New Zealand. If you are self-managing, there is no second person reviewing this before it reaches the Tribunal, so checking it yourself matters even more.
Why has the Tenancy Tribunal issued AI guidance?
The Tribunal issued the guidance because AI use has become common enough in tenancy disputes to cause practical problems, particularly oversized submissions and inaccurate material. The guidance is not a response to AI use itself.
The guidelines were published on 7 August 2026 by the Principal Tenancy Adjudicator, under section 115 of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986. They sit alongside the broader 2023 Guidelines for Use of Generative AI in Courts and Tribunals, which cover all New Zealand courts and tribunals rather than tenancy matters specifically.
The Tribunal also recognises that AI can improve access to justice. Used carefully, it may help people without legal representation understand procedures, organise information and communicate their case more clearly. The concern the guidance addresses is not AI use itself, but inaccurate, misleading or excessive material that makes disputes harder to resolve.
The Tribunal's own guidance describes AI contributing to unnecessarily large volumes of material, including repetitive arguments and the same information repeated in different formats, for example a chronology, a timeline and a set of submissions all covering the same ground. Media reporting has also highlighted unusually lengthy tenancy claims prepared with AI assistance, adding to concerns about excessive material and unrealistic expectations about potential outcomes.
The guidelines do not create a penalty simply for using AI. They do warn, however, that inaccurate or excessive AI-generated material can have procedural consequences. In some circumstances, costs may be awarded where proceedings are considered frivolous or vexatious.
Why this matters more if you self-manage
Self-managing means the practical work of responding to a tenancy dispute sits with you. You need to identify the issues, find the relevant records, keep track of deadlines and decide when outside advice is needed. AI may make some of those tasks easier, but it can also introduce errors that are difficult to spot if you rely on the output too heavily.
The difference is practical rather than legal. Self-managing landlords have exactly the same Tribunal obligations as landlords who use a property manager. What changes is who is responsible for maintaining the records and coordinating the response when a dispute occurs.
Whether you self-manage or use a property manager, the Tribunal makes clear that responsibility for material submitted in your name cannot be shifted to an AI tool.
What can landlords use AI for?
AI may help landlords identify issues in a dispute, organise documents and evidence, understand relevant law and procedure, and prepare questions for mediation or a hearing. This is the same use the Tribunal describes as beneficial, particularly for people without a lawyer.
The condition attached to every one of these uses is the same: check the output yourself before relying on it. Asking an AI tool to check its own work is not sufficient. You need to verify facts, figures and legal references against a source you trust.
What should landlords not use AI for?
Do not rely on legal cases, legislation or legal principles produced by AI without checking them against a reliable source. AI tools can invent cases or misstate what a real case decided.
Do not use AI to rewrite a witness statement in a way that changes the witness's own words, experience or recollection. Witness statements should reflect the witness's own knowledge rather than an AI-generated version of events.
Do not enter sensitive information into an AI tool without first understanding how that information will be stored, retained or used. Tenancy agreements, financial details, photographs and personal correspondence can all raise privacy and confidentiality issues.
Do not use AI to record, transcribe, summarise or analyse a Tribunal hearing or mediation discussion. The guidance rules this out directly.
Do not submit large volumes of AI-generated material simply because the tool can produce it quickly. Repetitive arguments and unnecessary length can attract cost consequences and slow your own case down.
Do not submit AI output without checking it first. Responsibility for what you submit stays with you, not the AI tool.
What if you receive a large AI-assisted claim and you are self-managing?
Do not assume a claim is stronger simply because it is long or uses legal-sounding language. Deal with the actual allegations, the evidence behind them, and the remedy being sought.
Set aside dedicated time rather than trying to work through it in spare moments. A methodical approach helps prevent a long application from turning into an equally long and unfocused response:
Read the orders or remedies actually being sought, separately from the surrounding narrative.
List each factual allegation on its own, in plain language.
Build a simple chronology of what happened and when.
Match each allegation against your own tenancy records.
Gather the relevant inspection records, maintenance correspondence, the tenancy agreement, Healthy Homes documentation, rent records, photographs and communications.
Note any factual inaccuracies you can point to directly.
Keep your response focused on the allegations and evidence, rather than matching the length of the original claim.
Get professional or legal advice if the claim is complex or the amount at stake is significant. Note that a lawyer cannot automatically appear for you at a Tribunal hearing. The Tribunal has discretion to allow legal representation, generally where the issue is complex or there is a significant disparity between the parties' ability to represent themselves, but a lawyer can still advise you and help prepare your case regardless of whether they can attend the hearing itself.
Should you use AI yourself to prepare your response?
AI tools such as ChatGPT can assist with some parts of Tribunal preparation, but they should not be your sole source of legal information. You remain responsible for checking the accuracy of anything you rely on or submit. If you are self-managing, you need to make sure that checking happens before anything is submitted.
One point worth understanding before you start: AI tools tend to produce an answer that matches the way a question is framed. If you ask an AI tool to build the strongest possible case for your side, it will generally try to do exactly that, and the result can end up one-sided. A more useful approach is to ask it to challenge your thinking as well:
“What are the weaknesses in my position?”
“What arguments might the other party raise?”
Any response should still be checked against the facts, your tenancy records and reliable New Zealand sources. This is not a substitute for legal advice.
Keep privacy in mind as well. Think before uploading a tenancy agreement, financial information or personal correspondence to any AI tool, and check what that tool does with the information you enter. This applies whether or not you have anyone else helping you manage the property.
What the Tribunal data tells us about who is affected
Tenancy Tribunal data obtained under the Official Information Act and covering July 2024 to June 2026 shows that individuals and companies appear regularly as landlord respondents in tenant-initiated applications. Of 10,550 applications in the supplied data, 3,808 name a company as the respondent and 614 name an individual or individuals. A further 4,723 name an agent acting for the owner.
The data does not identify whether those owners are self-managing or professionally managed, nor does it provide a Wellington or Hawke's Bay breakdown. It therefore cannot tell us how many self-managing landlords are affected. What it does show is that the Tribunal's new AI guidance is relevant to landlords operating under a range of ownership and management arrangements.
When might professional property management be worth considering?
Self-managing a rental can work well for straightforward tenancies. A Tribunal dispute can expose how much administration sits behind managing a tenancy, particularly when records need to be assembled quickly or several issues need to be dealt with at once.
Professional management may be worth considering if you manage several rentals, live some distance from the property, find compliance and record-keeping increasingly time-consuming, or simply want someone else handling the day-to-day tenancy administration. A Tribunal matter can also prompt landlords to reassess how much of that work they want to manage themselves.
Example prompts for using AI at the Tenancy Tribunal
A few well-framed prompts can make AI genuinely useful for Tribunal preparation, provided you check everything it produces before relying on it. AI can be useful for organising and testing your thinking, but it is not an independent reviewer. Treat its output as a draft to check, not a finished answer.
Treat these as starting points to adapt to your own situation, not a script to copy straight into a Tribunal document.
For organising your case:
“Summarise this claim in plain English and list each separate allegation as its own point.”
“Based on the chronology and documents I've given you, organise them into a simple timeline. Do not add any events or details I haven't provided.”
For understanding procedure:
“Using the current New Zealand Tenancy Services information I provide below, explain in plain English what happens at Tenancy Tribunal mediation and create a checklist of things I may need to prepare. Do not add procedural requirements that are not in the source.”
For checking your own position:
“What are the weaknesses in my response? What arguments might the other party raise?”
“Does this response answer the specific allegations, or does it include anything unnecessary or repetitive?”
For reviewing a claim you've received:
“Summarise the actual orders or compensation being sought in this document, separately from the supporting narrative.”
For checking sources:
“List every statement in this draft that relies on New Zealand tenancy law or a Tribunal procedure. Beside each one, tell me what official source I should use to verify it. Do not invent a source or case.”
A general instruction worth adding to any of these prompts:
“Only use the facts and documents I've given you. Do not invent case law, legislation or additional facts. If you're not sure of something, say so rather than guessing.”
None of these prompts remove the need to check the result yourself. Build the habit of reading everything AI gives you as a draft rather than a finished answer, and confirm anything important against your own records and an official New Zealand source.
Key Takeaways
The Tenancy Tribunal's new AI guidelines, issued 7 August 2026, do not ban AI use. They set expectations for how it should be used, and those expectations apply equally whether or not you use a property manager.
You must disclose AI use if the Tribunal asks, and you remain fully responsible for everything you submit.
AI must not be used to record, transcribe, summarise or analyse Tribunal hearings or mediation discussions.
If you self-manage, make sure AI-assisted material is independently checked against your records and reliable New Zealand sources before you submit it.
A complex Tribunal matter can also be a useful point to reassess whether you want to continue handling all aspects of the tenancy yourself.
Final Thoughts
The Tenancy Tribunal's new AI guidance changes how some Tribunal material will be prepared, but it does not change the fundamentals of presenting a Tribunal case. Clear facts, relevant evidence and accurate records still matter more than how long or polished a document appears. If you are self-managing, that record-keeping and checking is your responsibility to coordinate, which is worth planning for before a dispute arrives rather than during one.
If you're reconsidering how much of your rental property's day-to-day management you want to handle yourself, the Oxygen Property Management team. can explain what professional management would look like for your property in Wellington or Hawke's Bay.
Article written by Shanon Aitken, Oxygen Property Management
This article was prepared by the Oxygen Property Management team, drawing on their experience managing rental properties across Wellington and Hawke's Bay.