{"id":557963,"date":"2026-08-03T17:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/557963\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T17:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:50:09","slug":"healthy-homes-standards-mbie-has-no-national-compliance-estimate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/557963\/","title":{"rendered":"Healthy Homes standards: MBIE has no national compliance estimate"},"content":{"rendered":"

National compliance and investigations manager Brett Wilson said getting an exact compliance figure would effectively require checking the estimated 600,000 rental properties, and that was not the regulator\u2019s focus. <\/p>\n

Instead, he said Government survey data estimated compliance around 90%. <\/p>\n

Wilson acknowledged the survey was self-reported but said what MBIE was seeing on the ground suggested it was reasonably accurate. <\/p>\n

He said the agency was confident the majority of rental properties were meeting the standards. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of properties where the landlord is compliant, or wants to be.\u201d <\/p>\n

However, Wilson said there were also landlords who didn\u2019t want to comply, citing the cost involved, for example. <\/p>\n

\u201cThose are the properties MBIE particularly wants to target.\u201d <\/p>\n

Rather than spending resources assessing large numbers of properties which turn out to comply, the agency says it uses data to identify geographic areas and properties at greater risk. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur work is less about identifying where the compliance picture sits across the whole of New Zealand, it\u2019s about addressing non-compliance.\u201d <\/p>\n

Wilson said because MBIE deliberately targeted higher-risk properties, it hoped to find greater levels of non-compliance through its work. <\/p>\n

He acknowledged there was a risk of breaches going unidentified but said MBIE undertook both proactive work and reactive investigations following complaints. <\/p>\n

Hundreds of breaches <\/p>\n

The figures show 327 cases involving 3699 properties were closed as of May 31, where at least one of the five Healthy Homes standards<\/a> had been breached. <\/p>\n

Breaches could cover multiple properties. <\/p>\n

MBIE clarified those included cases opened before July 1, as well as cases from its own investigations, on top of ones prompted by complaints.<\/p>\n

\"PrivatePrivate rentals must now meet minimum standards for heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture ingress and drainage, and draught stopping.<\/p>\n

Across the 327 cases, MBIE recorded 634 breaches of the five standards. <\/p>\n

The most common were unreasonable gaps and holes, with 133 breaches, followed by heating with 119, extractor fans with 107 and drainage with 99. <\/p>\n

Auckland<\/a> accounted for 200 of the 463 complaints nationwide, while Canterbury and Wellington recorded 52 each. <\/p>\n

Improvement notices were issued in 71 of the closed cases \u2013 to 59 landlords. <\/p>\n

Five landlords were issued infringement notices – but all for paperwork issues, none for breaching the physical Healthy Homes standards themselves. <\/p>\n

Nine landlords were taken to the Tenancy Tribunal after MBIE\u2019s own investigations.<\/p>\n

This resulted in a total of $267,252.82 in exemplary damages, pecuniary penalties and Healthy Homes statement penalties, although MBIE said some also covered other breaches of tenancy law. <\/p>\n

Two other cases were taken to the tribunal because of complaints from tenants, neither finalised yet.<\/p>\n

MBIE said not all complaints had been closed or investigations completed. <\/p>\n

\u2018Tip of the iceberg\u2019 <\/p>\n

Renters United spokesperson Zanian Steele said it was \u201cdeeply concerning\u201d MBIE did not have its own national compliance estimate and believed the enforcement figures represented the \u201ctip of the iceberg\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said the system relied too heavily on tenants identifying problems and being willing to report their landlords. <\/p>\n

Some tenants did not know their rights, while others feared losing their home or damaging their relationship with their landlord if they complained. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole compliance model puts the burden on to renters, instead of MBIE.\u201d <\/p>\n

Steele believed thousands of cases could be going unidentified, and said complaints were not a sufficient way of gauging the scale of non-compliance. <\/p>\n

He called for some form of independent assessment system, potentially including widespread random audits. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we think about issues like food safety at cafes, you wouldn\u2019t expect a diner to play a role in assessing whether or not the food is safe.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"NewNew Zealand Property Investors Federation advocacy manager Matt Ball.<\/p>\n

New Zealand Property Investors Federation advocacy manager Matt Ball said it wasn\u2019t surprising MBIE did not know the exact national compliance rate, and he didn\u2019t believe it needed to. <\/p>\n

He argued the figures instead suggested most landlords were meeting their obligations. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Healthy Homes Standards have required significant investment from rental property owners over many years, and landlords have worked hard to meet the requirements.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ball said MBIE deliberately targeted<\/a> parts of the market where non-compliance was considered most likely. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of a risk-based compliance programme is to find non-compliance, so the fact that they are still not finding high levels is encouraging.\u201d <\/p>\n

He supported strong enforcement against the small number of landlords who deliberately failed to meet their obligations but believed MBIE\u2019s targeted approach struck the right balance. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you believe the vast majority of people are obeying the law, what\u2019s the point of wasting a large deal of time and money in tying these people up in red tape?\u201d<\/p>\n

Kate Rickard is an Auckland-based journalist for Newstalk ZB covering tourism, immigration, social issues and general news. She previously studied journalism at AUT before joining ZB in April 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"National compliance and investigations manager Brett Wilson said getting an exact compliance figure would effectively require checking the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,3041,6743,9365,212218,4527,121617,54172,266,6871,305,5110,6800,12892,5829,83832,3556,111,43,139,7805,69,1356,22429,15388,6122,11422,8229,102,379],"class_list":["post-557963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-agency","tag-became","tag-compliance","tag-comply","tag-doesnt","tag-enforcing","tag-estimate","tag-government","tag-has","tag-have","tag-healthy","tag-homes","tag-mandatory","tag-many","tag-mbie","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-no","tag-nz","tag-properties","tag-rental","tag-responsible","tag-rules","tag-standards","tag-they","tag-with","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}