What is a Healthy Homes compliance statement, and when do I need one?

A compliance statement is a signed section of the tenancy agreement in which the landlord sets out, in specific detail, how the property currently meets each of the five Healthy Homes standards: what the heating is and its capacity, what insulation is where and at what level, which rooms have what ventilation, and so on. New tenancy agreements have required one for years, and it must reflect the property's actual, current state.

Where the information comes from

Every line of the statement is a fact you should already hold evidence for: the heating assessment calculation, the installer's invoice with the heat pump's capacity, the insulation statement with R-values, fan specifications, the photo of the ground moisture barrier. Landlords with those records filed per property complete a statement in minutes. Landlords without them end up guessing in a legal document, which is the worst place to guess.

The mistakes that cause trouble

• Copying last year's statement forward without checking anything changed, a dead extractor fan makes the old statement wrong.
• Signing "complies" as a hope rather than a checked fact.
• Leaving the statement out of a new agreement entirely, which is itself a breach with penalties attached.

The template and the exact requirements live on tenancy.govt.nz. The work worth doing before any new tenancy is simpler: re-walk the five standards, update the file, and let the statement describe a property you have actually looked at recently.