When a local council repeatedly refuses to enforce its own bylaws, the consequences frequently don't stay contained within the complainant's immediate world. They can, in fact, spread directly into the commercial life of the district.
How so? Let me count the ways . . . starting with how
Masterton District Council, an expanding group of staff and management, and its (in my personal experience, completely ineffective to the point of irresponsible) Mayor and local councillors are impacting, or have impacted the buyer or would-be buyer and the listing agent in a local real estate transaction.
It likely won’t be the only example, if the
staff concerned keep up their continuing acts of irresponsible juvenility, the Councillors chuckle from the sidelines, and the
Mayor remains conveniently hidden behind the executive suite’s Personal Assistant.
Consider this a case study of how the
council’s entertaining itself with its acts of recalcitrance towards a ratepayer they’ve decided not to like, can bleed into the local property market of its catchment area and create potentially serious liabilities (that should have been unnecessary) for local real estate agents.
For readers new to this story: for 18 months and counting, I’ve been
attempting to have the Masterton District Council's animal control team enforce the Dog Control Act against a persistently,
chronically barking spaniel
whose property shares a fenceline with mine. The dog barks —
often for hours, either consistently or in on/off episodes — directly against MY fence, as close to MY house as it is to its owners'. Maybe closer. The owners are usually home and do nothing.
The council has done
less
than nothing.
Except to entertain itself with my distress.
What "less than nothing" looks like, in practice, is documented across multiple published articles on this site —
complete with audio recordings, independent witness statements, and an 18-month paper trail of complaints that were either ignored, gaslit, or formally "closed" while the dog was actively barking. The council's own after-hours contractor, during a telephone conversation, acknowledged that the street (that is, the one BEHIND mine) in question is a known nuisance barking trouble spot . . . but this known status apparently holds no water in the case of my own repeatedly evidenced complaints.
To be clear: Eighteen months of documented, logged, yet ignored requests to the Masterton District Council's compliance and animal control team to enforce the Dog Control Act has resulted in nothing. That is, nothing other than said expanding group of staff, management and Councillors
entertaining themselves with their own juvenility.
Except that, actually, now it
has resulted in something: A direct and measurable consequence for at least one local real estate transaction.
When Council's Fun-time Causes A Headache for Either A Property Buyer or the Agent Who Wants to Sell that Property: Rule 10.7 and What Agents Are Required to Disclose
Under Rule 10.7 of the Real Estate Agents Act (Professional Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2012, licensed agents are legally required to disclose any material information that a buyer would reasonably want to know . . . including active, documented nuisances affecting a property or its immediate surroundings.
When a
council compliance team spends (now more than) 18 months refusing to act on a heavily documented barking dog nuisance, there are at least three immediate consequences with legal implications:
- Forced Misrepresentation: Properties in known problem areas can go to market without disclosure of an active nuisance — not necessarily through any fault of the agent, but because the council's non-enforcement means the nuisance remains unresolved and undocumented in any official compliance record an agent would ordinarily rely upon. In a current local listing, the result has been marketing copy that explicitly promises buyers they can be assured of a quiet time of it — copy that, given the documented circumstances, is materially inaccurate regardless of the agent's intent.
- Transaction Risk: A completed or pending sale without proper disclosure exposes the agency to REA complaints, post-settlement compensation claims, and potential transaction collapse.
Did the Council Know This Property Was for Sale?
The council's position that
"the other neighbours haven't filled out the log sheets we gave them" or
“say it doesn’t worry them” evaporates into a ludicrous argument when it turns out that at least one of said neighbours is actively trying to sell their property (and one might well understand why) . . . and the other has themselves been the subject of a barking dog complaint by another neighbour (not me — a male complainant, the gender of complainant the Council appears to be more conducive to taking seriously, even if that male complainant didn't table
audio recordings, witness statements and other multiple instances of rock solid evidence as I, of female gender, have done).
In fact, on the above note, the current situation the new owner will be faced with would have been very clear to the council's animal control staff if, as they had been invited to do multiple times but refused, they had come to MY property and stood in my backyard where the dog barks directly at MY fenceline. Why? Because that fenceline is roughly equidistant from my house as it is to the property being sold on the other side of it. In fact, the property that will be impacted by the vociferous spaniel is probably closer.
So now, resultantly, we have a situation whereby a major local real estate agency principal has received formal written notification (from me) that the council's non-enforcement is generating direct non-disclosure liability for their agents. It's now a governance failure with measurable commercial consequences for commercial enterprises in their district.
From:
editor@consumeraffairswriter.com
Sent:
Saturday, 4 July 2026 8:36 pm
To:
LISTING AGENT; AGENCY PRINCIPAL
Cc:
'info@rea.govt.nz'; 'mayor@mstn.govt.nz'; 'craig.bowyer@mstn.govt.nz'; 'gary.caffell@mstn.govt.nz'; 'waireka.collings@mstn.govt.nz'; 'tim.nelson@mstn.govt.nz'; 'brent.goodwin@mstn.govt.nz'; 'stella.lennox@mstn.govt.nz'; 'david.holmes@mstn.govt.nz'
Subject: URGENT: Material Nuisance Nondisclosure & Misleading Marketing Copy – LISTING ADDRESS, Masterton
Dear (AGENT)
I am writing to you regarding your current listing for (ADDRESS), Masterton (Trade Me Property ID: NUMBER STATED).
(TWO PARAGRAPHS REDACTED IN ORDER TO AVOID IDENTIFYING THE PROPERTY IN QUESTION.)
Please advise if, in accordance with your strict professional disclosure obligations under
Rule 10.7 of the Real Estate Agents Act (Professional Conduct and Client Care Rules) 2008, you have explicitly disclosed this material defect to all prospective buyers and interested parties – or the buyer, if it is indeed now sold.
To ensure your agency cannot claim plausible deniability regarding this ongoing nuisance, please be formally advised of the following facts:
- Prior Legal Notice: On May 20, the owner of the offending spaniel was formally served with a legal letter from my solicitors outlining the severe health and consequential financial impacts that this unmitigated barking nuisance has caused to my life.
- Pending Litigation: This matter is now in the formal process of being submitted as an active Disputes Tribunal claim for substantial financial damages against (REDACTED).
- Public Evidentiary Record: Full public logs of the continuous noise complaints, council correspondence, certified witness statements, and audio recordings verifying the severity of the shared backyard nuisance are fully indexed and viewable by the public and regulators at
DoggieMamma.com. Several include:
On a purely personal note, as the owner of a neighbouring property – the fenceline of which this spaniel stands and barks at often incessantly, sometimes for hours, and/or on and off for hours, and sometimes until very late at night, and also sometimes emits volleys during the night – I find the situation absolutely heinous. The fact that the Masterton District Council's compliance team has created an environment where an innocent buyer will purchase, or has purchased, that property with likely zero knowledge of a totally unresolved, severe barking nuisance is completely unacceptable.
Every single Councillor CC'd on this email today has been CC'd on multiple of my attempts across the past 18 months to have this issue addressed. One of them has, in fact, even openly antagonised me instead of acting on his own statutory obligations.
In the interests of ensuring the Council's continuing refusal to act on its obligations under the Dog Control Act is transparent, this email will form the basis of an update to the ongoing articles documenting these issues to date. I will, however, not publish the exact street address of the property currently listed for sale in that public update.
As a licensed real estate agent under the Real Estate Agents Act, you are legally prohibited from concealing material information or distributing marketing copy that makes material misrepresentations.
That this property could be considered able to be quietly enjoyed, is a grave misrepresentation under the current circumstances.
(PARAGRAPH REDACTED IN ORDER TO AVOID IDENTIFYING THE PROPERTY IN QUESTION.)
Please be advised that if I do not receive written confirmation from you within 5 working days confirming that your marketing copy has been corrected and that full disclosures are actively being made to the buyer or all prospective buyers, an immediate, formal complaint will be lodged with the Real Estate Authority (REA) for a breach of Rule 10.7. Furthermore, a non-response will be published in full as part of the case study update on DoggieMamma.com.
I look forward to your prompt written confirmation that this litigation and ongoing nuisance are being explicitly disclosed to all parties, and that your misleading marketing copy is being corrected immediately.
As for the Councillors, I trust this finally gives each of you pause with regard to your continuing stonewalling – and some of you, your ridicule – with regard to this matter and the obligations you refuse to recognise that you do indeed have to your ratepayers.
Yours sincerely,
Jordan Kelly
