Your obligations as a landlord in New Zealand, with the numbers that matter

Deadlines and limits

• Lodge the bond — within 23 working days of receipt, through Bond Hub
• Maximum general bond — 4 weeks’ rent
• Maximum pet bond — 2 weeks’ rent, one at a time
• Maximum rent in advance — 2 weeks’ rent
• Rent increase frequency — once every 12 months
• Rent increase notice — 60 days, in writing
• Respond to a pet consent request — 21 days
• Respond to a minor change request — 21 days
• Provide Healthy Homes compliance information on request — 21 days
• Notice for a routine inspection — 48 hours, and no more than 14 days in advance
• Inspection frequency — no more than once every 4 weeks
• Notice for repairs or maintenance — 24 hours
• Notice for meth testing — 48 hours (24 hours for a boarding house room)
• Meth test results to tenants — in writing, within 7 days
• Ending a periodic tenancy, no cause — 90 days
• Ending a periodic tenancy, specified grounds — 42 days
• Ending a fixed term at expiry — notice between 90 and 21 days before
• Permitted entry hours — 8am–7pm (8am–6pm for boarding houses)

Penalties

• Breaching the Healthy Homes Standards — up to $7,200
• Failing to include a Healthy Homes compliance statement — up to $500 per tenancy
• Charging a letting fee — unlawful act; up to $1,000 exemplary damages
• Retaliatory termination notice — notice may be set aside; exemplary damages
• Tenancy Tribunal jurisdiction — up to $100,000, and for Compliance and Investigations applications covering multiple tenancies, the threshold applies to each tenancy

The core duties

Provide and maintain the property in a reasonable state of repair, safe and healthy to live in, and compliant with building, health and safety requirements. Meet the Healthy Homes Standards — heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture ingress and drainage, draught stopping — and include a signed compliance statement in every new, renewed or varied tenancy agreement. Provide a written tenancy agreement, with a physical address for service, and an electronic address if one is to be used. Lodge the bond with Tenancy Services within 23 working days — it is not yours to hold. Provide an insurance statement — whether the property is insured, and the excess applying to tenant-caused damage. Provide working smoke alarms and maintain them. Respect quiet enjoyment — give correct notice, enter only for permitted reasons, only within permitted hours. Keep records of inspections, maintenance, communications, payments and compliance evidence.

What changed recently, and where owners get caught

Pet consent, from 1 December 2025. Blanket “no pets” clauses are unenforceable. You must respond to a written request within 21 days and can only refuse on reasonable grounds tied to the property or the animal. Disability assist dogs are exempt entirely, no consent, no pet bond. Pets lawfully kept before 1 December 2025 are grandfathered. Notice periods, from 30 January 2025. No-cause 90-day terminations are back, but the 42-day notice is available only on three specified grounds, and serving it without qualifying is invalid, and may expose you to a retaliatory-notice claim. Fixed terms, from 1 May 2025. They now roll to periodic automatically unless notice is given between 90 and 21 days before expiry. If you intend a tenancy to end, you must act inside that window. Bond transactions, from 29 June 2026. All online, through Bond Hub or integrated property management software — manual lodgement no longer exists. Meth thresholds, from 16 April 2026. 15µg/100cm² for decontamination, 30µg/100cm² for uninhabitable.

Records: what to keep and for how long

• The signed tenancy agreement, including the Healthy Homes compliance statement and insurance statement
• The ingoing and outgoing inspection reports, with photographs
• Every routine inspection report
• All maintenance requests and what was done about them
• Healthy Homes assessments, invoices and product specifications
• Rent records and receipts
• All written communication with the tenant
• Bond lodgement and refund confirmations

An email address given as an address for service can be used for up to two years after the tenancy ends, including in a Tribunal application. At the Tribunal, the party with the contemporaneous written record usually wins — that is the entire practical case for good record-keeping.

What you cannot charge

• Letting fees, application fees, admin fees, key money — all illegal
• More than two weeks’ rent in advance
• More than four weeks’ bond, plus two weeks’ pet bond where a pet is consented to
• An option fee may be taken to hold a property, capped at one week’s rent, refunded or credited to rent if the tenant proceeds

Frequently asked questions