17 August 2017

REINZ applauds Wellington City Council’s voluntary Rental Warrant of Fitness

The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) applauds moves by the Wellington City Council today to launch a voluntary Rental Warrant of Fitness for minimum housing standards in Wellington.

The Council has partnered with the University of Otago to launch an app that will allow tenants and landlords to check properties against minimum health standards designed by experts, and allow landlords to request a full inspection by a professional to be certified as meeting the standard.

Bindi Norwell, Chief Executive at REINZ says: “This is a great step in the right direction towards providing Kiwis with warmer dryer homes and we applaud Wellington City Council for making such a bold move. We strongly believe that Kiwis deserve a warm dry home to live in and it’s an issue REINZ is extremely passionate about.

“This initiative is not about turning homes into luxury properties, it’s about ensuring that minimum housing standards are met – and who would want to take their property to the market it if doesn’t even meet basic standards? That’s not an attractive proposition for potential renters, nor does it look after the health of their tenants,” points out Norwell.

“The Rental Warrant of Fitness will provide landlords and property managers who have properties that meet the criteria with an opportunity to market these homes as being top notch. For those with properties that don’t meet the criteria, it provides a real incentive to work as hard as they can to meet the criteria in order to provide a warm dry home,” she continues.

“However, it’s important that any standards introduced do have an element of being cost effective and practical for landlords or else there is a danger of reducing the rental stock available in an already tight market,” she concludes.

ENDS

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