Healthy Homes Compliance: What I Check on My Own Properties

I own four apartments at Imperial Gardens, 135 Hobson St in Auckland CBD - a three-bedroom, two one-bedrooms with car parks, and a one-bedroom. When the Healthy Homes Standards came into force, I had to get all four units compliant. Not because a tenant complained. Because it's the law, and because the penalties are real - up to $7,200 per breach, and there are five standards. That's $36,000 if you fail on everything.

Before the body corporate got involved, I did my own research on each of the five standards - working out what applied, what I was exempt from, and what needed fixing. A few weekends of work with the regulations and a tape measure. Eventually our body corp arranged a professional assessment and sent compliance certificates to all owners, which was great - it confirmed everything I'd already figured out. But I was glad I'd done the homework first, because I understood what the certificate actually meant.

Here's what I learned going through the process, standard by standard.

Heating

The heating standard says you need a fixed heater in the main living area that can heat the room to at least 18 degrees. The key word is "fixed" - portable heaters don't count, and neither do unflued gas heaters or open fires.

My apartments don't have heat pumps or fixed heaters. The body corp doesn't allow split systems in any unit, and I haven't installed panel heaters. But the units are genuinely warm - even too hot sometimes. Each apartment has only one external wall, surrounded by other heated units on all sides. They're warm, dry, and centrally ventilated. Some owners in the building have installed fixed panel heaters, but mine haven't needed it.

For most standalone houses though, a heat pump is the obvious choice. The bit that catches people out: it has to be big enough for the room. You can't just stick a small unit on the wall and call it done. Use the Tenancy Services calculator at tenancy.govt.nz - punch in room dimensions, ceiling height, region, and insulation level. Check the manufacturer specs to make sure the rated output meets the required number. An undersized unit is non-compliant even though it's bolted to the wall and working fine.

Insulation

This is where apartments differ from standalone houses, and it tripped me up at first. In an apartment building, you typically don't have a crawl space under the floor or accessible ceiling cavity above your unit. My apartments have concrete slab floors and the ceiling space belongs to the unit above or the building structure.

The good news: concrete slab floors and inaccessible ceiling spaces are exempt. But you still need to confirm and document it. I checked with the body corporate to understand the building construction - concrete floors, insulated roof above the top floor.

For standalone houses, you need ceiling insulation at R 2.9 minimum and underfloor at R 1.3 (higher in the South Island). It has to be in reasonable condition - compressed, sagging, or water-damaged insulation doesn't pass. Get up in the ceiling and actually look.

Ventilation

Every habitable room needs at least one opening window or door to the outside, with an openable area of at least 5% of the floor area. Most modern apartments meet this, but I measured anyway.

The bigger requirement is extractor fans. Kitchen needs one that vents outside - not a recirculating rangehood. Bathroom needs either an extractor fan ducted outside, or an opening window. If no window, the fan is mandatory.

In one of my units, the bathroom fan had stopped working and I hadn't noticed because the window was always cracked open. Replaced it. Twenty minutes and fifty bucks. Check yours - a broken fan is non-compliant even if the bathroom has a window.

Moisture and Drainage

The moisture standard requires efficient drainage for storm water and surface water, no obvious leaks, and a ground moisture barrier over any exposed earth in the subfloor.

For my apartments, drainage is handled by building common infrastructure. But I still checked for leaks around windows and doors. One unit had a slow leak around a window frame from failed sealant. Fixed it before it became a compliance issue.

If you have a standalone house with exposed earth under the subfloor, you need a polythene ground moisture barrier - at least 0.25mm thick, covering all the ground. Gutters and downpipes need to be clear and functional. Walk around the property during heavy rain sometime. You'll quickly see what's working and what isn't.

Draught Stopping

All unused open fireplaces must be blocked - chimney balloon, fitted board, whatever works. My apartments don't have fireplaces, but if you have a house with a decorative one that hasn't been used in years, this is yours to solve.

Beyond fireplaces, no unreasonable gaps or holes that cause noticeable draughts. Not airtight - just no daylight under doors or wind through wall gaps. I walked through each unit with windows closed, feeling around doors and frames. Draft excluders on external doors, gap filler on wall penetrations. Small fixes, big difference.

The Compliance Statement

Before or at the start of every new tenancy, you must provide a signed compliance statement with specific details for each standard: heater type and capacity, insulation R-values or exemption reasons, ventilation confirmation, drainage condition, and draught stopping.

Tenancy Services has a template on their website. Use it. Fill it out with real numbers. If your property doesn't meet a standard yet, you must disclose that. A false compliance statement is itself a breach.

With the turnover I've had across four units - fourteen-plus tenants - that's a lot of compliance statements. Having the data already recorded makes it a five-minute job instead of a weekend project.

If You Own a House, Not an Apartment

My experience is with unit titles where the body corp eventually handled the assessment. If you have a standalone house, the situation is different:

If it's a new build, ask the developer to provide Healthy Homes compliance information before you settle. It should be straightforward for a modern home.

If you're buying an existing property to rent out, ask the real estate agent for compliance information before you make an offer. Make sure it's compliant, or factor the cost of getting it compliant into your offer price.

If you already own an older house, get it professionally assessed and bring it up to standard. The assessor should provide you with a document confirming compliance that you can rely on if you ever get inspected. Budget $250 to $400 for the assessment. The fixes themselves vary - could be a few hundred for draught stopping and fans, or a few thousand if you need ceiling insulation or a heat pump installed.

My Biggest Tip: Track It Properly

The penalties are real. $750 infringement notices from Tenancy Services, up to $7,200 per breach at the Tribunal. And if you own six or more properties, the penalties double. Non-compliance is one of the most common reasons tenants take landlords to the Tribunal, and it's one of the easiest to prove because the standards are objective and measurable. The extractor fan either vents outside or it doesn't.

I'll be honest - the compliance overhead is one of the reasons I'm hesitant to grow beyond my current portfolio. The rules change with every new government, and keeping up with compliance across six or more properties becomes a serious cost in time and money. It's not just Healthy Homes - it's interest deductibility changes, bright-line tests, ring-fenced losses, tenancy law amendments. Every year there's something new. If you're thinking about scaling, factor in the compliance cost, not just the mortgage.

Keep receipts for everything - heater installations, insulation work, fan replacements. If a tenant disputes your compliance statement, receipts and photos are your evidence. I learned this from my Tribunal experiences: documentation wins cases. The landlord who shows up with organized records gets taken seriously. The one who says "I think I fixed that last year" does not.

I built the Healthy Homes tracking in RentManager because I was tired of keeping this information in a folder of paper receipts and photos. Now each property has its compliance status recorded - what's compliant, what the details are, when it was last checked. When I set up a new tenancy, I can see exactly where things stand before the tenant moves in. No scrambling, no guessing.

If you're managing your own properties, do yourself a favour and get on top of this. Walk through each unit, work through the five standards, document everything. It's a weekend's work that saves you thousands in potential penalties and gives you confidence that you're doing right by your tenants.