Healthy Homes Compliance Statement: The Auckland Landlord’s End-of-Tenancy Guide

Quick answer: A healthy homes compliance statement is a signed record, required in every new or renewed tenancy agreement, that sets out how your rental currently meets the five Healthy Homes Standards. Since 1 July 2025 all private rentals must comply — so the tenant turnover window is when you sort the maintenance behind it.

Your tenant has handed in notice. You’ve got a few weeks, maybe less, before the next one moves in. In that window you have to inspect the place, fix what’s broken, get it clean, and re-let it before the rent stops landing in your account. And there’s a piece of paper you legally can’t skip: the healthy homes compliance statement that has to go into the new tenancy agreement.

Most Auckland landlords we work with treat the turnover as a cleaning job with a bit of touch-up paint. It isn’t. Since 1 July 2025, every private rental in New Zealand has to meet all five Healthy Homes Standards — and the statement you sign tells the tenant, in writing, exactly where the property stands. Get it wrong and you’re exposed at the Tenancy Tribunal. Get the maintenance wrong and you’re either signing a statement that isn’t true, or re-letting a property that quietly fails.

Here’s the part nobody spells out: the statement and the maintenance are the same job, done in the right order. You can’t honestly sign the statement until the extractor fans, the heating, the insulation and the moisture barrier are actually there and working. This guide walks through the turnover window the way we run it — the compliance document, the maintenance that has to back it up, and how to get it done without blowing your re-let date. It’s written for landlords. If you manage your own rentals in Auckland, this is the sequence.

The Turnover Window: What Actually Has to Happen Between Tenants

The gap between one tenant leaving and the next moving in is the only time you get proper access to the whole property. Once the new tenancy starts, you’re back to 48 hours’ notice for inspections and working around someone’s roster. Everything structural, every trade job, every compliance fix — it all happens now, or it waits months.

For an Auckland rental, that window is tight. In a soft patch you might have three or four weeks vacant. In a hot market you’re trying to get the new tenant in within a fortnight. That’s not long to run a proper end-of-tenancy check, book trades, wait on parts, and still hit your re-let date.

The end-of-tenancy inspection is the whole game

Walk the property with a list, not your memory. You’re looking for two separate things at once: ordinary wear and tear versus tenant damage — that’s your bond conversation — and compliance gaps, which is your Healthy Homes conversation. They’re different jobs and they get funded differently. Damage can come out of the bond. Compliance is your cost as the landlord, full stop.

One of our landlords in Papakura had a tenant move out after three years. The place looked fine on a quick look. When we walked it properly, the bathroom extractor was venting straight into the roof cavity, the rangehood just recirculated, and the subfloor had no moisture barrier. None of that is tenant damage. All of it is a compliance fail the landlord owns.

💡 Property tip: Photograph everything at the end-of-tenancy inspection, dated. If a bond dispute lands at the Tribunal, the walkthrough photos are your evidence — and the same photos double as part of your compliance record.

Why the clock matters more than it used to

Before 1 July 2025 you had transitional timeframes — properties had windows of 90 or 120 days from the start of a tenancy to get compliant. Those windows are gone. Every private rental has to be fully compliant now, at the point the tenancy begins, according to Tenancy Services. There’s no grace period left to lean on. If it’s not compliant on day one, you’re already offside.

So the turnover isn’t just cleaning and re-letting. It’s the moment you verify compliance, fix what’s failed, and generate the paperwork that proves it. Skip it and the problem doesn’t disappear. It moves into a live tenancy where you can’t easily get access to fix it, and where a tenant can take you to the Tribunal.

💡 Property tip: Build your turnover around trades availability, not the other way round. Auckland trades book out fast — if you wait until the tenant’s gone to ring around, you’ve lost a week before anyone’s even quoted.

This is the exact situation the one-call model is built for. Instead of chasing a sparky, a plumber, a fan installer and a moisture-barrier crew separately, you get one point of contact who sequences the lot inside the vacant window. More on that below. First, the document all of this feeds into.

The Healthy Homes Compliance Statement Explained

The healthy homes compliance statement is the most misunderstood piece of paper in a tenancy agreement. It’s not optional, it’s not a formality, and it’s not the same as “I reckon the place is fine.” It’s a signed statement, included in every new or renewed tenancy agreement, that sets out the property’s current level of compliance with each of the five Healthy Homes Standards.

What the statement has to actually say

The statement records where the property sits against each standard — heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture ingress and drainage, and draught stopping. For each one, you state the current position: what’s installed, what the specs are, and whether it meets the standard. Per Tenancy Services, new or renewed tenancy agreements must include a signed statement with details of the property’s current level of compliance with the standards.

Vague doesn’t cut it. “Property has heating” isn’t a compliance statement — the standard is a fixed heater in the main living room that can reach 18°C, sized to the room. You’re stating the specifics, and you’re signing your name to them.

Leaving the statement out of the agreement carries a penalty of up to $500 per tenancy. That’s the fine for the missing paperwork on its own — separate from anything that flows out of the property not actually being compliant.

“The statement is where landlords get caught out. They sign it in a hurry to get the tenancy across the line, and they’re signing off compliance they can’t back up. If a fan’s recirculating or the barrier was never laid, the statement is wrong the moment it’s signed — and you’ve put that in writing, in your own name.”
— Superior Property Services Team

The records rule and the 21-day clock

Signing the statement is only half of it. You have to keep the records and documents that show how you’re complying with each standard — installation receipts, product specs, R-values, fan flow rates, the lot. If a tenant asks for that information, you have to provide it within 21 days, per Tenancy Services.

Here’s where the turnover window pays off. Every trade job you do between tenants should generate a document you file: the heat pump install with its kW rating, the extractor fan with its diameter or flow rate, the insulation with its R-value certificate, the moisture barrier coverage. Do the work properly and the records assemble themselves.

💡 Property tip: Keep one compliance folder per property — digital is fine. Every time a trade does work, the invoice and spec sheet go straight in. When a tenant or the Tribunal asks, you’re not scrambling.

Healthy Homes compliance note: The compliance statement must reflect the property’s actual current state, not its intended state after work you haven’t done yet. If you’re mid-turnover, the maintenance has to be finished and documented before you can honestly sign. The full standard-by-standard detail is on the Tenancy Services Healthy Homes standards pages.

Statement, record, assessment — three different things

People muddle three terms. The compliance statement is the signed declaration in the tenancy agreement. The compliance records are the evidence behind it that you keep on file. A healthy homes assessment is the optional inspection — often done by a trade or an assessor — that tells you where the property actually stands, so you can fill the statement in truthfully. You don’t legally need a formal assessment. But if you’ve never had the property checked against the standards, getting one done during the turnover is the cleanest way to know what you’re signing.

The Between-Tenancy Maintenance That Backs the Statement

You can’t sign an honest statement until the property genuinely meets the five standards. So the maintenance comes first, the statement comes second. Here’s what each standard demands, and the traps that catch Auckland landlords out. The thresholds below are the exact specs your compliance statement has to reflect — worth knowing cold.

Heating and insulation — the big-ticket items

The heating standard needs a fixed heater in the main living room capable of reaching 18°C, sized to the room’s volume. For most Auckland rentals that’s a hi-wall heat pump in the 5–7kW range, but the required capacity depends on the room — an under-sized unit fails even though it’s technically “a heat pump.” Sizing is the compliance point, not the presence of a heater. The detail sits in our rundown of the heating standard for Auckland rentals.

Insulation needs ceiling coverage at R2.9 for a new install — or R1.3 if it was already in and met the earlier standard — and underfloor at R1.3 minimum. Older Auckland stock, the villas and bungalows through Avondale, Mt Albert and New Lynn, often has degraded or missing insulation that won’t hit the number. The turnover is the time to top it up, while you’ve got clear roof and subfloor access.

Ventilation — where most “compliant” rentals actually fail

This is the trap. Recirculating rangehoods do not comply. Neither do DVS, HRV or SmartVent whole-home systems as a substitute for extractor fans. The standard wants an extractor fan in every kitchen and bathroom that vents to the outside — kitchen at 150mm ducting or 50 L/s, bathroom at 120mm or the required flow rate. A rangehood that filters and blows air back into the kitchen looks like ventilation and isn’t. Plenty of Auckland rentals have exactly this, and their landlords assume they’re fine.

Whole-home positive-pressure systems are a genuine improvement to a house, but the standard treats them as an enhancement, not a substitute — you still need the ducted fans. We broke down which system does what in our comparison of DVS, HRV and SmartVent for rentals. If you take one thing from this section: check where your fans actually vent to before you sign anything.

💡 Property tip: Stand outside and look for the vent outlet. If you can’t find where the bathroom fan or rangehood exits the building, it’s probably dumping into the roof cavity or recirculating — and that’s a fail.

Moisture and draughts — cheap to fix, expensive to ignore

Where a subfloor is enclosed, you need a ground moisture barrier — polythene laid over the exposed ground, covering at least 80% of it, running about $7–$15 per square metre installed. It’s one of the cheaper fixes and one of the most commonly missing, especially under older South and West Auckland homes. Draught stopping means blocking the unreasonable gaps: perished door and window seals, gaps around the subfloor hatch, unused fireplaces.

Healthy Homes compliance note: All five standards apply to every private rental as of 1 July 2025 — there’s no partial compliance. A property that nails heating, insulation and draughts but has a recirculating rangehood is non-compliant. Cross-check every standard against the full Healthy Homes standards checklist for Auckland landlords before you sign the statement.

The reason the one-call model matters here is sequencing. These are five different trades — an electrician for the heat pump, an insulation crew, a fan installer, a moisture-barrier crew, and a hand for the draught work. Booked separately, they turn up on five different days and your vacant window bleeds out. Run through a single coordinator and they’re sequenced into the turnover. That’s the practical side of our turnover maintenance run across all five standards — one visit, one quote, one completion date.

Getting It Done Without Blowing Your Re-Let Date

Knowing what has to happen is one thing. Getting it done inside a two-to-four-week vacant window — while also cleaning, doing the bond inspection and advertising for a tenant — is another. The landlords who hit their re-let dates are the ones who sequence the work instead of doing it reactively.

The order that keeps the timeline

Do the compliance and structural work first, cosmetic work last. Paint before the fan installer cuts a new duct through the wall, and you’re painting twice. Lay new flooring before the moisture-barrier crew is under the house, and you’re pulling it up again. The right order runs: inspect, book trades, do compliance and repairs, then cosmetic, then clean, then photograph and sign the statement, then advertise.

Picture a two-bedroom unit in Manurewa turning over in winter. Tenant’s out on the 1st. The compliance check flags a recirculating rangehood, thin ceiling insulation and no moisture barrier. Book all three together for the first week, cosmetic touch-ups the second, clean and photograph at the end of week two, new tenant in by the 20th. That only works if the trades are coordinated from day one — not rung around after the tenant’s already gone.

When it’s a maintenance job — and when it isn’t

Turnover maintenance is single-job, fix-and-replace work: heat pumps, fans, insulation, moisture barriers, gib patching, tap and lock replacement, flooring repair, general repairs. That’s the Superior Property Services lane — the maintain, replace and improve jobs that keep a rental compliant and re-lettable. Where the line sits matters, because the wrong call costs you time.

If the turnover needs a full repaint rather than touch-ups — a property tenanted five years that needs the lot done — that’s dedicated painting work, and it goes to Superior Painters, the group’s painting brand. Between-tenancy touch-ups we handle. A full interior and exterior repaint is their job.

And if what you’re really looking at is renovation-scale — a gutted bathroom, a new kitchen, reconfiguring the layout to lift the rent — that’s beyond maintenance. That’s Superior Renovations, our parent company. We’ll tell you straight when a job has crossed from maintenance into renovation, because pretending a reno is a maintenance job helps nobody.

💡 Property tip: If you’re doing renovation-scale work between tenancies, sort the Healthy Homes items and ventilation ducting first, then run the cosmetic reno over the top. Do it the other way and you’re ripping into fresh work to run a duct three months later.

One call for the turnover

The whole point of the property maintenance model for landlords is that you make one call and the turnover gets coordinated — the compliance work, the repairs, and the records that feed your statement. As part of the Superior Construction Group, we pull the electrician, plumber, insulation and finishing trades from one network, sequence them into your vacant window, and respond within one working day. For a landlord juggling a turnover on a deadline, that’s the difference between re-letting on time and carrying an empty property into another week of lost rent.

➡ Request a free no-obligation quote from Superior Property Services
➡ Learn more about our turnover and property maintenance in Auckland
➡ Make an enquiry — we respond within 1 working day

Healthy Homes Compliance Statement FAQs for Auckland Landlords

WRITTEN BY SUPERIOR PROPERTY SERVICES

Superior Property Services is an Auckland-wide property maintenance company offering plumbing, electrical, painting, flooring, minor alterations, and general property maintenance. We are the one call for all your property needs — serving homeowners, landlords, property managers, and investment property owners across Auckland. Part of the Superior Renovations group.

References

1. Tenancy Services — Healthy homes compliance (compliance statement, records, 21-day request rule)
2. Tenancy Services — Healthy homes compliance timeframes (1 July 2025 deadline)
3. Tenancy Services — Healthy homes standards overview