Megan Woods announces delay in healthy homes standards launch by one year to July 1, 2025, but to regulate property managers

Housing Minister Megan Woods has announced a one-year delay in healthy homes standards to July 1, 2025 for private landlords, and a one year delay to July 1, 2024 for Kāinga Ora.

Woods also announced residential property managers would be regulated, as promised in Labour's 2020 election manifesto. She said the Government would also consult on creating binding limits for meth residue in rentals.

“Nearly 600,000 households rent in New Zealand and these measures will result in regulated oversight of residential property managers, science-based rules on meth residue testing and a reprieve for landlords in meeting a compliance deadline,” Woods said.

The Government would regulate residential property managers so they were registered, trained and licensed, Woods said, adding that complaints and disciplinary matters would be dealt with through a new regulatory framework.

“Sometimes tenants are vulnerable to poor behaviour from residential property managers, especially in a tight rental market. Following our moves to give tenants more protection through the Residential Tenancies Act, we made a manifesto commitment in 2020 to regulate residential property managers,” Woods said.

“This means that like many other professions such as real estate agents, builders and lawyers, they will have conduct and competency standards to abide by and if they don’t, they can be held to account," she said.

One in three households rent and 42% of those are managed by residential property managers.

Cabinet had agreed the Real Estate Authority would be the regulator and that the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal would have an expanded role as Disciplinary Tribunal for residential property management-related complaints, Woods said.

Meth standards to be set

Woods said the Government would also consult the public before making binding rules on what an acceptable maximum allowable level of methamphetamine residue was, at what levels those homes needed to be decontaminated to, and when tenancies can be terminated due to high levels of residue.

“Currently there are two levels used - neither of which are legally binding – which create uncertainty for landlords and tenants,” Woods said.

“We have proposals that are informed by science, on screening, testing, and decontamination, with clear obligations for landlords. Under National, this issue was a dog’s breakfast; hundreds of tenants were unnecessarily evicted from public housing through the application of pseudo-science and we are cleaning up that mess.

“While the witch hunt on public housing tenants stopped under this Government and the former Chief Science Advisor Sir Peter Gluckman’s 2018 report resulted in a more scientific approach to residue dangers, it’s time to settle the rules once and for all," she said.

The Government proposed a maximum acceptable level of surface methamphetamine residue at 15 micrograms per 100 square centimetres, which would also the level at which a property needs to be decontaminated back to, or below.

“This level of residue is consistent with the findings of Sir Peter Gluckman’s report and advice from ESR. The sector needs certainty on what level of methamphetamine residue requires decontamination, so making regulations to clarify this is a priority,” Woods said.

She said Gluckman supported the proposals.

Extension of healthy homes deadline

Woods said legislation would be introduced into Parliament today to delay the deadlines for the healthy homes standards and passed under urgency before the end of the Parliamentary year.

“We recognise the impact that COVID-19 has had on getting this work done because of global supply-chain and delivery challenges, including limited workforce challenges,” Woods said.

“It makes sense to be pragmatic as most landlords are genuinely trying to comply with their obligations but are at risk of breaching them because of issues outside of their control," she said.

“The change means private landlords have one more year to comply, so all private rentals must comply by 1 July 2025, instead of 1 July 2024. The timeframe for compliance for a new or renewed tenancy shifts from 90 days to 120 days.

“For Kāinga Ora and Community Housing Providers, the timeframe for compliance shifts from 1 July 2023 to a new date of 1 July 2024."

Woods said the last survey in 2021 indicated 85% of private rentals met, or had action underway, to meet the standards, while 84% of Kāinga Ora homes either met the standards or there was work in progress to meet them.

“Pragmatically delaying the timeframes for compliance will ease pressure on landlords, however we do expect Kāinga Ora to aim to have as many properties as possible to be compliant by the original deadline of July next year. Projections indicate they could achieve around 95% compliance by the original date,” Megan Woods said.

Political reaction

National Housing Spokesman Chris Bishop said he was not surprised by the delay as only 50% of Kainga Ora homes met the Health Homes standards as of July this year.

“All private rental properties have had to comply with the standards for any new or renewed tenancy since July last year. It was one rule for them, and one rule for the Government. And now the Government is extending the deadline for Kāinga Ora houses to 1 July 2024," Bishop said.

“The majority of private landlords have done the right thing, followed the rules and upgraded properties. This is a giant slap in the face from a Government that simply can’t get anything done," he said.