An increasing number of such claims have caused delays in tribunal proceedings
The Tenancy Tribunal has published guidelines on AI use in Tenancy Tribunal proceedings in the wake of the system being inundated by a wave of AI-generated claims, reported the NZ Herald.
The guidelines outline the positives and risks in counting on AI output. A spokesperson told the Herald that Tenancy Services and the Tenancy Tribunal had increasingly observed AI being used to generate the materials they received.
“In some instances, the apparent AI-generated material has added significantly to the length and complexity of the claims”, the spokesperson said.
David Faulkner, general manager of property management at Property Brokers, described the guidance as a “very positive step” in a statement published by the Herald.
“Everything that they say is actually in the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA), but it’s good referring to the fact that if people are going to make frivolous and vexatious cases with what we call AI slop, then there’s a small threat that they may end up paying court costs”, he said in a statement published by the Herald.
Faulkner explained that Property Brokers has increasingly received long submissions for claims seeking tens of thousands in damages – up to $70,000 in some cases. He believed these submissions were written by AI.
“They all have the same pattern. We’re providing a lot of training to our property managers on how to deal with this and not to panic, because when you get a claim with, say, 200 pages against you, it can be quite intimidating”, Faulkner said in a statement published by the Herald. “A lot of what the AI spits out, is actually also incorrect”.
Last year, a tenant had reportedly filed a 101-page report and 215 pages of evidence in a case challenging Property Brokers – documents that were believed to be AI-generated. The tenant was seeking $40,000 in compensation; however, they only got $80.
Such claims took up much time and resources and led to Tenancy Tribunal delays. Nonetheless, Tenancy Services and the Tenancy Tribunal acknowledged that in some cases, the AI-generated material was “concise and relevant”, helping the tribunal to flag and understand relevant issues.
“The tribunal received nearly 30,000 applications last year, most of which had no obvious AI component, so it is difficult to determine the overall impact of this increased AI use on the tribunal as a whole”, the spokesperson told the Herald.
Tenants are not the only ones guilty of AI use – landlords and property managers are too, per Tenancy Advisory director Sarina Gibbon. She noted that tenants were often the biggest victims of AI misuse.
“Unfortunately, AI hallucination, AI bloat, the mis-setting of expectations tend to really disadvantage tenants because fundamentally, just as a rule of average, tenants are just generally a little less knowledgeable about the RTA. So they’re not able to even be able to figure out when AI is hallucinating and when they’re not”, Gibbon said in a statement published by the Herald.
She added that AI often inspired unrealistic expectations about possible compensation in tenants.
“I see AI emboldening applicants to expect that they would have a huge monetary payout. And then these applicants come to my business, or they go to the Tenancy Tribunal, and they’re incredibly let down when they find out what they will get is nowhere near that”, Gibbon said in a statement published by the Herald. “If you just let AI hallucinate fact patterns that never happened or make fanciful and outlandish arguments to sort of stretch your rights, you’re going to be disappointed. You’re going to be under scrutiny, and [they’re] going to ask you questions, and you’re not going to be able to answer them”.
She reminded tenants that AI use did not reduce or boost their rights and obligations under the RTA. While she had observed AI being effectively used to improve applications, she said these instances were “very rare” at present.
The new guidelines, Gibbon said, reminds tenants of their “core duties” as applicants.
The Tenancy Tribunal is the principal tenancy adjudicator in New Zealand.
