The Ocean Grove, Dunedin house at a centre of a fight between a landlord, Vic Inglis, and his former tenant, Natalie Parry.

Vic Inglis received a text a day after a tenant left his property.

The text from former tenant Natalie Parry said: "Steve Parry is my father CEO of southland district council. What you have been doing is illegal."

The Dunedin landlord was later ordered to refund $10,960 of rent to his former tenant, because she had lived in the Ocean Grove property with non-permitted alterations.

SUPPLIED Gore District chief executive Steve Parry says he didn't give advice to his daughter when she initially became involved in a $10,000 tenancy dispute.

Inglis and his wife bought the property as is. They did not realise that the alterations were different from plans submitted to the Dunedin City Council, and did not request a LIM report.

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The controversial Tenancy Tribunal decision was later overturned by Judge Kevin Phillips in the Dunedin District Court.

The tribunal "in my view of the facts, was plainly wrong", Judge Phillips said in his decision released this week.

Natalie Parry, a hairdresser, was ordered to pay Inglis $10,960.44.

Parry declined to comment to Stuff and referred all comments to her father, Steve Parry.

The Gore District Council chief executive, who graduated with a law degree from the University of Otago in 2015, said his daughter had been "hounded by the media" over the matter.

Despite the suggestion in the text from his daughter, he said he did not become involved in the case early on and had never visited the property.

He said he was aware his daughter was going to the Tenancy Tribunal "over a bond".

His daughter got the plans for the property from the Dunedin City Council (DCC), "because at one stage I think she was even looking at potentially buying the property".

Her mother thought some of the work "was a little bit odd . . . and suggested that she look at what was consented in the council records".

"I don't think Natalie exercised that suggestion until such time as the dispute arose over bond, and took it on herself to go to the DCC."

He said he got involved when a judge issued a minute suggesting both parties get legal advice.

Parry was present as a "support person" in the Dunedin District Court when his daughter represented herself.

Natalie Parry had stayed in the property for 29 weeks and was asked to sign over the bond when an inspection revealed damage to the property, Inglis said.

She moved out on February 20.

Parry then took Inglis to the tribunal and, in an April 19 application, said she thought it was a permitted property when she moved in.

She claimed she overheard a real estate agent saying the converted basement area was not signed off.

Inglis had an affidavit from his agent saying Parry was "not privy to this conversation".

Judge Phillips noted the property had no illegality apart from a technical lack of consent and Parry "could not argue that she suffered detriment".

Inglis said he no longer owned the rental property.

"We are out of the game."