Healthy Homes Standards need external scrutiny ensuring landlord's have ‘done the work properly’
4 July, 2025
Interview by Max Micheel, adapted by Sara Mckoy
New expectations have come into effect to improve the quality of homes in New Zealand, but as regulations are self-enforced, the University of Auckland’s Bill McKay is concerned that rental standards will not necessarily get better.
From the start of this month, the Healthy Homes Standards kicked in, setting an updated minimum standard for houses across New Zealand intending to improve renters’ health and general living conditions.
The standards became law in 2019, with landlords given five years to implement the guidelines.
According to the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) head of tenancy, Kat Watson, the requirements seek to ensure that New Zealand rentals become “warmer, drier and healthier”.
The 2025 Housing Aotearoa Report from Stats NZ indicates that just under 30% of renters experience mould or dampness in their home, with figures disproportionately higher for disabled people, as well as Māori and Pacific people.
Landlords must now ensure that rental properties have adequate heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture ingress and draining, and draught prevention.
Those who fail to comply with these guidelines will be violating the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 and will face fines of up to $7200.
However, there are concerns about the rigidity of compliance for New Zealand’s 600,000 rental properties, as the responsibility for compliance is undertaken by the landlord themselves.
Senior lecturer in the School of Architecture & Planning at the University of Auckland, Bill McKay, told 95bFM’s The Wire that the self-certification system may limit the effectiveness of the Healthy Homes Standards.
“They're not having external inspectors to make sure the landlord's done the work and done the work properly…”
“There are a lot of bad landlords out there. So I do worry that bad landlords will just kind of get away with things… I think we should have more of an inspection system.”
He likened the current expectation that landlords would comply with the requirements without external regulation to having car owners being responsible in certifying their own warrant of fitness.
Therefore, he says a standard of safety is critical.
“When a car is rocketing down the road at 100km/h, you might think that's a lot more dangerous than a house … but, we know that the living conditions in the average house in New Zealand can cause all sorts of respiratory illnesses, especially in kids. So, you know, houses can be as dangerous as vehicles.”
With provisions for ‘no-cause evictions’ coming into effect in January, McKay says the enforcement and accountability of Healthy Homes Standards may be difficult to uphold for dissatisfied tenants.
“If you think that the home that you're renting is not up to standard, the first thing you do is approach the landlord … [but] we know that a lot of tenants don't like approaching the landlord because, you know, they might get chucked out or something like that.”
He also expresses concerns about the financial consequences for renters, both in terms of operational costs for fixed heaters, and if landlords raise prices to cover the costs of additional work they are required to complete.
Overall, Mckay says that while these new obligations will hopefully improve minimum standards across New Zealand, more work needs to be done to ensure that legislation actually raises overall living conditions for renters.
