Who can do a Healthy Homes assessment?

Anyone can, including the landlord. There is no licence, register or required qualification for Healthy Homes assessors, and Tenancy Services describes getting professional advice as voluntary. What the law cares about is whether the property meets the standards and whether the landlord holds records showing it. Qualifications matter in two narrower places: some installation work must be done by licensed tradespeople, and one optional way of working out heating needs requires a qualified heating specialist.

No licence, no register

Tenancy Services says you can hire a professional to advise on or assess your rental, and that doing so is voluntary but an effective way to make sure it complies. Nothing in the guidance names an accreditation to look for. RNZ reported in April 2026 that because no qualification is needed, anyone can call themselves a Healthy Homes assessor, and that different assessors can reach different results on the same house. The same report noted the government had chosen minimum standards rather than a rental warrant of fitness scheme.

The upshot: a job title tells you nothing on its own. Judge an assessor by their background and their report, not their badge.

The landlord can do it

Tenancy Services publishes the tools any assessment rests on: the heating assessment tool, insulation and ventilation tools, checklists and a technical guide for each standard. No qualification is needed to use them. The heating guidance says the tool's results can be relied on when accurate information is entered, though for irregular ceilings it tends to overestimate the heating needed, and a professional or the full calculation method may give a truer answer.

Landy's free self-assessment takes you through the five standards in order. The limits of doing it yourself, mostly about safe access, are covered in free Healthy Homes assessments.

Where qualifications are required

• Installation work: gasfitting, drainlaying, plumbing, electrical work and restricted building work must be done by an appropriately licensed professional, such as a licensed building practitioner, licensed electrical worker or licensed gas worker. This is about doing the work, not assessing it.
• The alternative heating pathway: instead of the standard formula or tool, a qualified heating specialist can assess the required heating capacity. Tenancy Services lists who counts: a chartered professional engineer, an International Professional Engineer registered with Engineering New Zealand, or someone with a Level 7 or higher engineering, physics or building science qualification and at least five years of heating system design experience. Landlords using this route must keep the specialist's name, qualifications and method.
• Practicability exemptions: whether something can reasonably be installed is judged by what a professional installer, meaning someone experienced in that installation work, could access. For insulation, Tenancy Services suggests getting written confirmation of the reasons.

What to look for in an assessor

None of this is law, just the questions that separate a useful report from an expensive tick sheet.

• Relevant background. Building, insulation installation, heating or engineering experience means they know what they are looking at.
• Will they physically enter the ceiling space and subfloor where it is safe, or look from the hatch?
• Will the report give the figures the compliance statement asks for: required heating capacity in kilowatts and how it was worked out, heater output, insulation R-value or thickness and condition, fan details, subfloor barrier details?
• Dated photos of each item, not just a checklist.
• A clear line between what they saw and what they assumed or could not reach.
• Whether they also sell the heat pumps or insulation they may recommend. That is not wrong, but it is worth knowing.

What an assessor cannot do

• Sign your compliance statement. Tenancy Services says a professional's assessment can inform it, but the landlord signs, not the professional. A property manager acting as the landlord's agent can sign.
• Take on your responsibility. Landlords must meet the standards and keep meeting them, whatever a report says.
• Grant an exemption. They can give a written opinion that supports one, but whether it applies is decided on the facts.
• Issue official approval. A pass from an assessor is not a government sign-off. See certificate vs compliance statement.