Landlord avoids fine for fall after railing gave way at rental property
Monday, 8 June 2026
A year after Aimee Carey fell through a railing at her sister’s flat, landing on her back metres below, she’s still in pain, but determined to move on.
“I’m pushing it into the past,” Carey said. “Not every day is smooth, but I just keep going forward.”
Recently, landlord Dave Bradley was ordered to pay $528 in damages by the Tenancy Tribunal. However, the fine was not over the loose railing at the Mt Cook, Wellington home, but for failing to provide a lawful tenancy agreement.
Bradley lives at the property, a rambling weatherboard building on Hankey St divided into six units, which he has owned since 1983.
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Speaking to The Post over the phone, Bradley said he had fixed the railing and the incident was “done and dusted”. He did not want to talk about it, and hung up when asked more questions about the property’s condition and his track record as a landlord.
Carey’s “freak accident” happened last Matariki, when she was visiting her sister Marama Te Kira, who was about to move into one of the downstairs units at the property.
Te Kira had just picked up the key, and wanted to show her new place to Carey and two friends. She had paid the first week’s rent, $300, up front. In lieu of a tenancy agreement, Bradley gave her “a paper he’d scribbled on and signed”.
But the property was in poor shape, and Carey said “red flags” went up when she saw its condition.
“Yeah the rent’s cheap, but peeling paint, rotten boards on the deck … oil and petrol stains on the carpet, no working oven.
“We were all shaking our heads saying to Marama, no don’t do it.”
Outside the flat, a railing overlooked a concrete path about 3m below.
Later, Bradley would tell the Tenancy Tribunal he had no idea the railing, which he passed every day, was loose.
After looking around the flat, the group moved outside and Carey leaned briefly on the railing. It gave way, and she fell to the concrete path below, hitting the side of a planted border on her way down.
Carey said the fall seemed to happen in slow motion: she could picture the consequences unfurling as she fell.
The fall was life-changing, she said. After being taken to hospital by ambulance, x-rays and scans revealed a fractured sternum, seven displaced ribs and an impacted spine.
After a week in hospital, she moved in with her mum, who Carey said has been her “mainstay and main support”, in Ōtaki to recover.
“For two months, I was on a high amount of painkillers, in distress and depression.”
She resigned from the job she loved, at a rest home where she’d worked for 17 years.
A year later, Carey is still in pain, especially at the end of the day. But she’s working 20 hours a week at a cafe, and determined to move on, which is why she won’t pursue any further action against her sister’s landlord.
“I've always been like that my whole life, motivated. I'm pretty old school when it comes to work and life in general. I don't expect other people to carry me.”
It is not the first time Bradley has appeared before the tribunal. Last year, he was ordered to pay $3800 to a tenant who was subjected to a “campaign of harassment” by his landlord.
The ruling said the tenant, whose name was suppressed, lived with a “door-sized hole” in an external wall, as well as a broken oven and a leak.
Bradley had not provided a proper tenancy agreement, and he hadn’t lodged his tenant’s bond.
It was this earlier careless paperwork that led to Te Kira’s exemplary damages: her own “scribbled-on” tenancy agreement was unlawful, and adjudicator K Koller found yet another breach to be intentional on the landlord’s part.
However, Te Kira’s claims relating to the rail were dismissed.
“There is no evidence the landlord knew … about the unsecured railing, and the railing was repaired within a reasonable time frame,” Koller said. “I do not find there was a breach of the duty to maintain or repair the deck.”
Te Kira had other claims relating to the property’s condition, including the filthy carpet: (Bradley had suggested she either live with it, or pay him an extra $20 a week so he could save up for new carpet).
But Koller found there had been no loss to Te Kira as the tenancy had lasted “about an hour”. Although she had packed up her belongings, she hadn’t moved out of her old home, and she was able to negotiate with her landlord to remain there.
Te Kira was “disgusted” with the result and planned to appeal.
“[Bradley] seems to have gotten away with it quite easily,” she said. “It is a real kick in the teeth that he was fined $528 and he's still renting that place out.”
She struggled to forget the image of her sister falling, and the sound of her crying in pain.
“The worst thing was seeing my sister lie there and not knowing whether she was going to be paralysed for life.”
Afterwards, she and the friends who had witnessed the fall had burst into tears.
“It was just traumatising. It’s not every day you see someone fall that far and almost die, it was just awful.”
Te Kira said Bradley had offered to settle out of court, but she refused: she wanted a record and accountability.
As a result, she’d spent about $1000 on the court process, and on other costs.
“I should get compensation, at least break even and get my money back. But also, because of what [Carey] went through, he should have had to pay a lot more because it was serious.”