r/LegalAdviceNZ

Hi all, I'll make this easy and short to understand.

The house we are in is currently on the market for sale (in the hopes the buyer will keep us as renters), however there is an empty room which the head Tennant is covering the cost while it is unoccupied.

We have been trying to find someone to take this room, but feel that with the house on the market it is showing a sign of no security for the potential new Tennant (they move in, house sells, we have to all move out). Because this choice to sell the house is completely and rightly out of our depth, and it is at the homeowners decision, I feel they should be covering the cost or waiving the cost of the other room while the house is on the market.

Do we have any legal rights as to not pay for this room while the house is on the market? Everyone is stressed about trying to fill this room but with no luck, we are just considering leaving the place and finding something that suits us.

Please let me know what we could do to try and figure this out before our head explodes

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

Burner account for obvious reasons. Today at the end of the workday, my employer pulled us all inside for a meeting with no warning. We never have meetings. They basically explained they had been served notice that the lease was being terminated (they didn't own the land the business was on), since they hadn't paid their lease in two months. They had said they stopped paying due to an ongoing legal battle with the land owners, and had been given a notice period of the termination of lease.

They told us that this was our last shift, and we wouldn't have shifts for the foreseeable future. This was obviously shocking to all of us, and came pretty much out of the blue, even to my managers. We asked if we'd be paid, they said they'd pay us for the shifts we'd done on our usual payday, but not saying when they would pay our entitlements, saying "it's not that much anyway".

Another thing they insisted on is that we don't tell anyone. They said we could tell our families, but we weren't allowed to "go to the media". The bosses were crying.

Anyways, I went over to my coworker's place after the meeting. We can't believe it. We're all on casual contracts, so they say they don't have to give us shifts, but we work the same shifts every week, so if I remember correctly, that makes us automatically part time workers?

What do we do here. We are at a loss. Suddenly we are thrown out of work with literally less than a days notice.

CLARIFICATION: Myself and most of my coworkers have been at the company for well over a year, and whilst we are on casual contracts, we have worked the same days and hours for the past year. We don't want to chase them for leave that would've been entitled to us if we were part time employees, at least not at this stage. We just want our holiday and alternative leave that we have accrued to be paid to us.

UPDATE: I have contacted the CAB as well as consulted a lawyer pro bono. I have been assured that with my history of payslips, hours worked, and shift pattern over the past few years, makes me a part time employee, despite my contract being casual. To those saying I'm "entitled", please put yourselves in mine and my coworkers shoes. My bosses haven't said if/when they will pay out our accrued leave entitlements, which are in our contracts and payslips. We suddenly have no form of income, in a job market that is already sparse. Most of us are young workers (under the age of 25), and rely on this work to put us through our studies.

About 5 weeks ago we engaged a builder to replace a retaining wall on our residential property. The builder provided a fixed-price quote, completed the work, and issued what appeared to be the final invoice for the project. We paid that invoice in full.
This week we received an invoice for approximately $900 from a plumber we never dealt with directly. We were aware a plumber had been on site, but there were several subcontractors involved, so that alone did not indicate additional costs beyond the builder's quote.
The invoice is addressed to the builder, not to us. We responded to the plumber advising the invoice should be directed to them.
The builder now told us that the plumbing cost is a "variation" because it was outside the scope of the quoted work. The quote contains the following:
"Any works outside of this scope to be added as a variation, e.g. drainage and services."
I appreciate additional work can be required once a project is underway. However, we were never advised of an additional charge, never received a variation quote, and we never approved any variation verbally or in writing. There was also no building contract beyond the accepted quote.
In this case are we liable to pay these fees which weren’t communicated with us? We’ve had transparency issues with this builder during the project which has made us doubtful of their morality