What Healthy Homes records must a landlord keep, and for how long?

Landlords are required to keep records that demonstrate how the property meets each standard, and to produce them when properly asked, by the tenant in defined situations, or by Tenancy Services. "Demonstrate" is the load-bearing word: not a general sense that the house is fine, but documents, installer statements, invoices showing capacities and R-values, product specifications, assessment results, dated photos.

The retention shape

Tenancy law requires the documents behind a tenancy to be kept during it and for a period after it ends; the current specifics are on tenancy.govt.nz. Treat that as a floor, not a target: compliance evidence keeps serving long past any minimum, for the next tenancy's statement, for insurance, at sale. Tax records have their own, longer retention expectations, and property invoices are usually both.

What good looks like per standard

• Heating: the assessment calculation, the installer invoice, a photo of the unit and rating plate.
• Insulation: the installer statement with R-values and coverage, ceiling and subfloor photos.
• Ventilation: fan specifications and invoices, a note of openable windows per room.
• Moisture and drainage: drainage work invoices, the barrier photo taken before the hatch closed.
• Draught stopping: dated before-and-after photo pairs and a line of what was sealed.

The habit that makes this painless is filing per property, per standard, at the time, five slots, filled once, versus one drawer of mixed paper interrogated in a hurry the week a compliance statement or a Tribunal case asks. That filing pattern is, not coincidentally, exactly what Landy is.