With the main Healthy Homes deadline just a few weeks away, property managers and landlords should hopefully be well on track to achieving compliance.
A quirk of the Healthy Homes Standards allowed property managers and landlords to not include a Healthy Homes Statement with fixed term tenancy agreements since December 1, 2020.
This will no longer be the case come July 1, 2021. All new and renewed tenancies, whether they are fixed term or periodic, must include a Healthy Homes Statement.
Furthermore, any new and renewed tenancy signed from this date will only have 90 days to be achieve compliance from a practical standpoint.
This could be problematic for many property managers and landlords who have yet to meet all the requirements of the Healthy Homes Standards.
All Clear, who were one of the first Healthy Homes Assessments companies established in 2019, have assessed over 8,000 rental properties and can confirm only 4% of those are compliant after their first assessment.
As of June 8, 27% of those rental properties now fully meet all the requirements of the Healthy Homes Standards.
This snapshot of data should provide enough evidence to suggest that property managers and landlords should be worried if they don’t have a plan to achieve compliance with these new regulations.
“Our advice has always been consistent – early visibility will result in a more manageable journey to Healthy Homes compliance,” All Clear Co-Founder and Director Adam Gordan said.
“Delaying an assessment unnecessarily will only deprive you of much needed time to plan out any work required, and this becomes particularly evident in the event of a capacity crunch in the trades…. such as anecdotal feedback about heat pump and installer capacity shortages in some regions.”
Tenancy.co.nz, who provide New Zealand’s most used tenancy application and agreement software system, and All Clear have come up with a solution to reduce the stress of these impending requirements.
The two market leaders have fully integrated their platforms, and this will save property managers’ serious time.
Gordan estimates that this integration will reduce the workload of property managers by 45 minutes per tenancy agreement.
“Our valued customers will be able to synchronise their tenancy.co.nz and ACSP (All Clear Services Portal) profiles and have access to all properties we have assessed for them,” Gordan said.
“Furthermore, (property managers) will be able to easily view compliance information about these assessments and quickly produce documentation such as tenancy agreements and Section 13A statements live on the tenancy.co.nz portal.”
Tenancy.co.nz’s eBundle application and agreement system is used by more than 3,000 professional property managers all over New Zealand and has generated over 1 million tenancy applications for over 350,000 unique tenant users.
Tenancy.co.nz Managing Director Craeg Williams is thrilled for what this integration can provide property managers who use both All Clear and the eBundle tenancy application and agreement system.
“This Healthy Homes integration not only combines two leading providers, but it also promotes healthier businesses and healthier staff,” Williams said.
“It saves property managers time with data entry significantly reduced. We have heard of property management offices hiring staff just to take on the workload of Healthy Homes compliance.”
“This integration removes or reduces the need to hire new staff to comply with the Healthy Homes Standards.”
The integration also promotes healthier staff who can now have peace of mind that the data being entered from All Clear is accurate and compliant.
“Because this process is automated, it reduces the chances of human error. This offers greater protection in terms of compliance, which results in reduced stressed levels for staff,” Williams said.
“It is well documented that high stress levels are common in the property management industry and this integration is going to help alleviate that.”
All Clear and a host of other Healthy Homes Assessment Companies all over New Zealand are also featured on the tenancy.co.nz Directory – DirectME.
