Damp dominates healthy homes standards disputes
Tuesday, 28 July 2026
A healthy homes standards dispute is hitting the Tenancy Tribunal roughly four times per working day, but the system appears to be working as it should, a ventilation expert says.
The standards, which became law in 2019, set minimum requirements for heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture, drainage and draught-stopping in rental properties.
Compliance was phased in over the six years until July 1, 2025, and since then all of New Zealand’s approximately 565,000 rental properties, public and private, have had to comply with them.
Now, ventilation specialists Better Vent have released what the company believes is the first analysis of every published tribunal decision from the first year of universal standards compliance.
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There were 11,747 decisions published over the year to June 30, 2026, and the analysis identified 952 substantive cases in which healthy homes compliance or a related habitability issue was disputed.
That equated to about 80 healthy homes standards related disputes a month, and it meant about one in 12 of the published decisions related to the standards.
Of those disputes, tenants won 36% of decided cases, while landlords won 35%, and 29% split both ways, the analysis found.
Better Vent director Joe Bell said the fact the success rate at the tribunal was essentially a 50/50 split between landlords and tenants went against some of the rhetoric seen in the space.
“Much of the rhetoric would lead you to believe that landlords were having less success at the tribunal due to non-compliance, but the findings suggest that compliance from landlords is pretty good.”
Landlords had been given plenty of time to get their properties compliant, and most had done the required work, often between tenancies, he said.
“There’s really just a few stragglers who are not compliant now, and they are usually in situations where there have been long-standing tenancies in place, and the required upgrading hasn’t happened.”
Damp was the defining issue of the first compliance year, with moisture issues (leaks, rising damp, failed drainage, and mould) featuring in 543 cases, or 57% of the year’s disputes, according to the analysis.
Bell said the standard produced the year’s most human stories on both sides, but it was the only standard where landlords won more often than tenants (33% vs 31%).
The outcomes of disputes turned on evidence, and landlords with current professional assessments consistently defended the claims successfully, he said.
“Ventilation played a part in this, with 215 of the 318 ventilation disputes argued alongside moisture and mould.
“That reflects how these cases actually unfold: the complaints are the symptoms of damp - condensation, mould on walls and curtains, musty rooms - and ventilation is how the tribunal explains it.”
It made sense, because while the standards were there to improve housing, they did not make any guarantees around moisture and mould, he said.
“So if the landlord has done everything to make sure their property is compliant, but tenants are not running range hoods, extractors, ventilation systems they may still have damp and mould.”
In such cases the tribunal was willing to take into account how the premises were ventilated day-to-day and dismiss the tenants claim, the analysis found. But where extraction was absent or defective the same mould became the landlord's breach.
It also found that heating was the standard tenants won on most often in disputes. Of the 327 heating-related disputes, tenants were successful in 38% of them.
Bell said that was because the heating standard was unforgiving, and a qualifying fixed heater either existed, worked and complied, or it did not.
But - surprisingly - it was disputes around compliance statements, which must now be included in every tenancy agreement, that delivered the most lopsided result to tenants.
“A signed statement is how a tenant is supposed to know what they are renting is up to standard, but missing or incorrect statements produced a 41% outright tenant win rate versus 21% for landlords.
“Another surprise was that the tribunal-ordered costs figure was not as big as we expected. In total, tribunal-ordered payouts topped $1.15 million nationwide, but we thought it would be higher.”
Of the $1.15 million in payouts over the year, the median award was $1500, the analysis showed.
But in 52 cases the payout was more than $5000 and in 18 it was more than $10,000. The biggest penalty awarded, against a landlord, was $61,140.
Bell said it was clear that presenting good evidence and documentation was key to winning at the tribunal.
“The pattern is not that good landlords win and bad landlords lose, or that sympathetic tenants win and difficult tenants lose. It’s that the documented party wins as the tribunal decides on evidence.”
Overall, the findings painted a picture of landlords being pretty good in relation to the standards, he said.
“It’s a huge change from 10 years ago when there were no standards for rental properties. The standards function as a de facto warrant of fitness for rental properties.”