Rent payments — lease — costs — indemnity — insurance — maintenance fund — maintenance of premises — “enforcement” — Property Law Act 2007, ss 245, 246 & 253 — Companies Act 1993, s 289 — District Court Rules 2014, R 14.6 — Auckland District Law Society Form of Deed of Lease, cl 6.1 — Black v ASB Bank Ltd [2012] NZCA 384 — Vector Gas Ltd v Bay of Plenty Energy Ltd [2010] 2 NZLR 444 — AAA Storage Limited v Onehunga Primesite Limited [2015] NZHC 3028 — Maydanoz N Ltd v Poppelwell [2012] NZHC 2223 — NJH Holdings Ltd v Oliphant (HC Auckland, CIV-2006-404-4749, 18 March 2007) — Beecher v Mills [1993] MCLR 19 — Herron v Wallace [2018] NZHC 2638. The plaintiff in this matter was the owner of a motel premises; the defendants had leased the motel. For several years the defendants had made consistently late payments of rent, insurance premiums, and maintenance fund payments. The plaintiffs had incurred considerable legal expenses in their efforts to secure the payments. Therefore the plaintiff claimed $104,621.28 in legal expenses, to be payable as indemnity per the lease agreement, as well as costs for pursuing the current proceedings. The defendants argued that not all of the costs claimed fell within the indemnity clause, and also that some of the charges claimed for were unreasonable. Further, the defendants made counterclaims relating to their right to use a maintenance fund established by the lease agreement, and to their rights and obligations relating to the insurance of the motel premises. The parties disagreed on the proper use of the maintenance fund, with the plaintiff considering that the defendants had depleted it by using it to cover trivial matters. The Court found that the maintenance fund was to be used to pay for any matters that the defendants were obliged to carry out per the terms of the lease. With regards the insurance policy the Court found that the plaintiffs had improperly failed to insure the premises in the names of both the plaintiff and the defendants, but as the defendants had suffered no loss as a result there was no remedy available. The matter of the plaintiff's legal costs fell to the Court's interpretation of the relevant clause in the lease. Therefore a certain amount of the costs claimed were payable if incurred as part of an attempt by the plaintiff to enforce its rights under the lease. With regards to the plaintiff's claim for the costs of the proceedings, the Court found that any legal work carried out in defending the counterclaims was not part of attempts to enforce the plaintiff's rights and therefore could not be claimed as legal expenses. However any attempts by the defendant to enforce its rights under the lease were capable of attracting a costs indemnity. The Court concluded by ordering the parties to take steps toward achieving final resolution of the proceedings at a subsequent hearing. Judgment Date: 15 February 2019.