Four in ten renters report mould and damp despite healthy homes assurances

More than four in ten New Zealand renters say they are living with mould, damp or draughts, even though most of them had been given evidence or a verbal assurance that their home met the healthy homes standards.

The finding comes from the Aotearoa Renters’ Survey 2026, which drew 3,310 responses from around the country and was launched at a public meeting in Wellington on Saturday. The survey was run by ActionStation and Renters United, nearly ten years after the two groups produced the People’s Review of Renting. Respondents ranged from young people to renters in their 80s, and included tenants of private landlords, property management companies, state and community housing providers, and temporary and emergency housing.

Of those who answered, 42.7 percent reported mould, damp and draught problems, and 18.7 percent said their home was probably not up to the healthy homes standards, according to the report launch release from ActionStation and Renters United.

One of those renters is Charlotte Billings, who lives in the Wellington suburb of Aro Valley. She told 1News that mould kept returning through her flat, including across shoes stored in her bedroom. “I haven’t worn them out this year. Maybe once, but they’ve just grown mould on them,” she said. Billings said she and her flatmates were assured the property was compliant before they moved in six months ago. The flat’s property manager told 1News the property held a healthy homes certificate.

The healthy homes standards became law in 2019 and set minimum requirements in five areas, covering heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture ingress and drainage, and draught stopping. Since 1 July 2025 every private rental has had to meet all five at all times, regardless of when the tenancy started. Close to 600,000 households rent in New Zealand.

How many of those homes actually comply is not known. Figures released to Newstalk ZB under the Official Information Act, and reported on 4 August, showed the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment holds no national estimate of the compliance rate.

The same figures showed that in cases closed between July 2025 and the end of May 2026, the ministry identified breaches affecting 3,699 rental properties across 327 cases, recording 634 individual breaches of the five standards. The most common were unreasonable gaps and holes, with 133, followed by heating with 119, extractor fans with 107 and drainage with 99. The tenancy compliance and investigations team received 463 complaints over that period and opened 213 investigations. Landlords who breach the standards can face exemplary damages of up to $7,200 through the Tenancy Tribunal.

The renters’ survey is not a random sample, and it is worth reading with that in mind. Respondents opted in through two organisations that campaign for tenants, so it records the experience of people motivated enough to fill in a form rather than a representative slice of every rental household. The report also names several large property management firms as the worst offenders, but a self-selected survey cannot fairly rank companies, because a firm managing tens of thousands of properties will attract more complaints than a small one without necessarily being worse at the job. What the survey does capture, across a large number of responses, is the gap between the paperwork and what tenants say they are living in.

Cost ran through the responses. The report says rents have risen 25 percent since 2020, and that some respondents were paying as much as 80 percent of their weekly income in rent. It also points to costs that do not show up in the rent itself, including travel from cheaper suburbs to work and school, homes that are expensive to heat and cool, and the expense of moving each time a tenancy is ended.

“Every week, renters do without food and endure substandard conditions, just to pay the rent,” said ActionStation campaigner Vanessa Cole. “Renters move in with family members or into their cars because they cannot afford to pay the rent.”

That sits alongside a rental market that has been cooling. Bond data and market reports through 2026 have shown rents easing in Auckland and Wellington, with average weekly rent falling year on year nationally in April, while parts of Waikato and the top of the South Island kept climbing.

The survey also asked renters what they made of recent law changes. It found 67.2 percent said the changes brought in by the National, NZ First and ACT government had not improved their lives, 28.1 percent said they did not know, and 4.7 percent said the changes had been positive.

Renters United president Luke Somervell said the return of 90-day no-cause terminations, which came back into force on 30 January 2025, had left tenants reluctant to complain. The report says most respondents either did not know about the tools available to challenge a landlord, such as a 14-day notice to remedy, or had not used them for fear of a rent rise or an eviction, even though retaliatory evictions are unlawful.

“Renters should not be afraid to ask for their basic rights, but the current system means that the burden is on renters to prove the standards have not been met,” Somervell said. “It’s clear that property investors and their agents are getting away with ticking boxes because there is inadequate enforcement, and the return of no-cause evictions is a constant threat limiting tenants’ negotiating power.”

He told 1News the problem was one of oversight rather than rules. “There’s no oversight and there’s no accountability for people who aren’t doing the right thing,” he said.

The report sets out a list of recommendations, including bringing back rent controls, restarting large scale public housing building, abolishing no-cause evictions and limiting the reasons a landlord can end a tenancy, and making it easier for tenants to bargain collectively over rent. Renters United also wants a public register of landlords and property managers so tenants can check the record of whoever they are renting from.

Part of that is already on the government’s books, though it has not reached Parliament. Ministry material updated in March describes a light-touch Residential Property Managers Registration Bill that would create a compulsory public register, a registrar and a disciplinary tribunal for property managers and property management firms. Private landlords, Kāinga Ora and community housing providers would sit outside it, and the timing of the bill depends on the government’s legislative priorities and the availability of drafting resource.

Housing Minister Chris Bishop told 1News he had not seen evidence that renters were afraid to speak up, but was willing to look at it. “The healthy home standards we support. They’re an important part of the rental market settings, but always happy to have a look at enforcement and how they’re working out in practice,” he said.

The standards were written to close the quality gap between rented homes and owner-occupied ones. More than a year after the final deadline, this survey suggests a good number of renters do not believe that gap has closed, and the regulator is not yet in a position to say how wide it still is.

Are you renting a place that was signed off as healthy homes compliant? Tell us what your home is actually like through winter, and whether you felt able to raise it with your landlord, in the comments below.

This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂