Healthy Homes compliance in Auckland: a landlord's checklist

Landlord guide - 11 September 2026

First, the two things every owner must have

• A compliance statement in the tenancy agreement. Every new or renewed tenancy agreement must include specific information about the property's current level of compliance with the standards. Leaving it out is an offence in itself, regardless of whether the house actually complies.
• Evidence. The standards are about what is installed and how it performs, and the only way to show that is a record: an assessment report, photographs, product details and invoices. If you cannot produce it, you cannot show compliance.

The five standards, room by room

1. Heating

Requirement: one or more fixed heaters that can directly heat the main living room to the required temperature, sized to the room. Portable heaters do not count, and neither does an open fire.

Auckland failure: an undersized heat pump. Many living rooms in older homes had a small heat pump fitted years ago; the standard's heating assessment tool often shows it is short of the capacity the room needs, especially in high-ceilinged villas and open-plan spaces. The fix is usually a larger unit or a second heater.

2. Insulation

Requirement: ceiling and underfloor insulation that meets the required standard, wherever it is reasonably practicable to install it.

Auckland failure: old, thin or patchy ceiling insulation that has settled below the minimum, and no underfloor insulation at all in homes with an accessible subfloor. Where access genuinely prevents installation, the exemption has to be documented, not assumed.

3. Ventilation

Requirement: openable windows in every habitable room, and extractor fans that vent outside in every kitchen and bathroom, with a minimum performance.

Auckland failure: a bathroom with a window and no fan (a window is not enough), a kitchen rangehood that recirculates rather than venting outside, and fans that vent into the roof space.

4. Moisture ingress and drainage

Requirement: efficient drainage for stormwater, surface water and ground water, including gutters, downpipes and drains, and a ground moisture barrier under an enclosed subfloor where one can be installed.

Auckland failure: the ground moisture barrier. It is the standard most owners have never heard of and, on a weatherboard home with an enclosed subfloor, the one most often missing. Blocked gutters and downpipes that discharge onto the ground are the other regulars.

5. Draught stopping

Requirement: unreasonable gaps and holes in walls, ceilings, windows, floors and doors blocked, and unused open fireplaces closed off or their chimneys blocked.

Auckland failure: the open fireplace in a villa or bungalow that nobody uses and nobody has sealed, and gaps around old sash windows and under exterior doors.

The other obligations that sit alongside

• Working smoke alarms within three metres of every bedroom door, or in every room where a person sleeps, with long-life batteries or hard-wired.
• An insulation statement in the tenancy agreement.
• The property kept in a reasonable state of repair, and repairs done within a reasonable time when a tenant reports them.
• From 16 April 2026, the methamphetamine regulations: contamination above 15 micrograms per 100 square centimetres must be decontaminated. See baseline meth testing.

A practical order of work

1. Get an assessment

   An independent Healthy Homes assessment tells you exactly where the property stands on all five standards, with the measurements to back it.

2. Fix the gaps

   Usually heating and the ground moisture barrier first, because they are the most commonly failed and the most visible to a tenant.

3. File the evidence

   Report, photos, product specifications and invoices in one place. Your property manager's portal is the obvious home for it.

4. Put the statement in the agreement

   Prepared from the file, at every new tenancy and every renewal.

5. Recheck at inspections

   Moisture, draughts and heater performance change. Routine inspections are where a developing problem is caught before it becomes a complaint.

Tenancy Services publishes the standards, the assessment tools and the compliance statement template at tenancy.govt.nz/healthy-homes. The requirements are technical in places, particularly heating capacity, and this guide is a summary rather than a substitute for an assessment.