What do the Healthy Homes standards mean for your rental?

Since 1 July 2025, every private rental home in New Zealand has had to meet all five Healthy Homes standards: heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture ingress and drainage, and draught stopping. There is no longer a grace period for new tenancies. The standards are part of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986, and a landlord who does not meet them can face financial penalties of up to $7,200.

The standards exist because cold, damp housing makes people sick, and renters have historically had little power to fix it. The rules set a floor, not a luxury level. A compliant home should be possible to heat to a comfortable temperature, should have dry air and dry ground underneath, and should not leak heat through gaps.

The basics

• Heating: at least one fixed heater that directly heats the main living room, sized to the room using the Heating Assessment Tool. Each heater must be at least 1.5 kW. Open fires and unflued gas heaters do not count. Heat pumps and electric heaters need a thermostat.
• Insulation: ceiling and underfloor insulation is compulsory. Older ceiling insulation must be at least 120mm thick. New insulation must meet minimum R-values (R2.9 ceiling in zones 1 and 2, R3.3 in zone 3, and R1.3 underfloor).
• Ventilation: every liveable room needs openable windows, doors or skylights totalling at least 5% of the floor area. Kitchens and bathrooms need an extractor fan vented outside (150mm or 50 litres per second in kitchens, 120mm or 25 litres per second in bathrooms for fans installed after 1 July 2019).
• Moisture ingress and drainage: working gutters, downpipes and drains, and a ground moisture barrier under an enclosed sub-floor.
• Draught stopping: unreasonable gaps and holes in walls, ceilings, windows, floors and doors must be blocked. Check the detail, including the rules for unused open fireplaces, at tenancy.govt.nz.
• Deadline: all private rentals from 1 July 2025. Kāinga Ora and community housing providers had until 1 July 2024, boarding houses until 1 July 2021.
• Compliance statement: every new or renewed tenancy agreement must include a statement of the home's current level of compliance. Missing it carries a penalty of up to $500 per tenancy.
• Information on request: a landlord must give you their compliance information within 21 days of you asking.
• Penalty for non-compliance: up to $7,200 for a landlord with fewer than six rentals, and up to $50,000 for a larger-scale landlord with six or more.

How it is worked out

Numbers matter most for heating, so here is how a typical case plays out.

The same logic applies to the other standards. For ventilation, a lounge of 30 square metres needs at least 1.5 square metres of openable window. For insulation, the landlord must be able to show thickness or R-value records.

The catch

• Compliance is about the whole list, not one item. A new heat pump does not excuse missing underfloor insulation or a bathroom fan that vents into the ceiling cavity.
• Exemptions exist but are narrow. The main ones are where the landlord has applied for consent to demolish or substantially rebuild (up to 12 months), where the tenant is the immediate former owner (12 months from the start of the tenancy), where the landlord does not own the whole building such as an apartment (partial exemption, still must do what is reasonably practicable), and where it is not reasonably practicable for a professional to install something without major building work or safety risk. Any exemption must be written into the tenancy agreement.
• Exemptions can lapse. If a consent application is refused, the landlord has 120 days to comply.
• The standards do not promise a warm house. They require the capacity to heat and the means to ventilate. Running the heater and opening windows is still on you, and the power bill is still yours unless the agreement says otherwise.
• Tenants have duties too. Keep the place reasonably clean, use the extractor fans, air rooms out, wipe condensation and report leaks and blocked gutters promptly. A landlord can point to neglect if mould appears.
• Landlords need 24 hours' notice before entering to do compliance work.
• Since 25 September 2025, meeting the Healthy Homes standards also satisfies the old Housing Improvement Regulations 1947, so there is one set of rules, not two.

What to do if it is wrong

1. Read the compliance statement in your tenancy agreement. If there is none, that itself is a breach.
2. Ask the landlord in writing for their compliance records. They must respond within 21 days.
3. Check the obvious things yourself. Is there a fixed heater in the living room? Do the kitchen and bathroom fans vent outside? Do windows open and stay open? Is there insulation visible in the ceiling access hatch?
4. Raise it with the landlord first. Put the problem in writing with photos and a date. There may be a reason such as supply delays or an exemption, and any agreement should be signed and dated.
5. Serve a 14-day notice to remedy using the Tenancy Services template if talking gets nowhere. It gives a fixed, reasonable time to fix the breach.
6. Apply to the Tenancy Tribunal if the time passes without action. The fee is $29. The Tribunal can order the work done and can award you compensation.
7. Report serious or repeated failures to the Tenancy Compliance and Investigations Team at MBIE, which can take enforcement action against landlords.
8. Keep every message, photo and receipt. Dated evidence wins Tribunal cases.

Common questions

My landlord says the house is "mostly" compliant. Is that good enough?

No. Since 1 July 2025 every rental must meet all five standards in full, unless a specific exemption is written into the agreement. "Mostly" is a breach.

Can my landlord raise the rent to pay for compliance work?

A landlord can only increase rent once every 12 months with the correct written notice. Compliance work does not create a special right to increase rent outside those rules.

Can I be evicted for complaining about Healthy Homes?

A notice given because you exercised your rights is a retaliatory notice, which is unlawful. You can apply to the Tribunal to have it set aside and seek exemplary damages.

The heat pump is in the bedroom, not the lounge. Does that count?

No. The heater must directly heat the main living room, which is the largest room used for everyday living. A heater elsewhere does not satisfy the standard.

Does the standard apply to a flat in an apartment building?

Yes, though a landlord who does not own the whole building may be partially exempt for things they cannot control, such as shared ducting. They must still comply as far as is reasonably practicable, and for heating must install at least one qualifying heater of at least 2 kW if the required capacity is over 2.4 kW.

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Last reviewed 14 October 2026. Written by Streetwise from the official pages listed above. General information only, not legal or financial advice.