Healthy Homes Excel - Free Template

1. Open the Checklist sheet and start with one row for each rental property. Enter a unique Property ID, address, city and landlord or owner name.
2. Enter the Tenancy Start Date using the DD/MM/YYYY format, such as 01/03/2026. Keep the date consistent with your tenancy records.
3. Check the five Healthy Homes areas: Heating, Insulation, Ventilation, Moisture & Drainage and Draught Stopping. Enter Y when the relevant standard is met and N when work or evidence is still outstanding.
4. Record whether the Compliance Statement Filed field is complete. This gives you a separate reminder that the statement paperwork has been dealt with, rather than assuming the property itself is compliant.
5. Review Standards Met (of 5), Compliance % and Overall Status. Use these summary fields to identify properties needing attention before the next inspection.
6. Enter the Next Inspection Due date and write a short action note, such as insulation under floor requires top-up. Update the row after repairs or a new inspection.
7. Use the Dashboard for the portfolio-level view and read the Instructions sheet before changing the workbook layout or copying rows.

Useful for landlords and property managers

A private landlord with two Hamilton rentals can use one row for each address instead of keeping heating information in one email, insulation notes in a folder and inspection dates in a phone calendar. A property manager looking after 40 homes can filter the Checklist sheet to find every row with an N in one of the five standards columns.

The workbook is particularly useful before a tenancy begins, after a repair, and when preparing records for a routine inspection. The example rows show three different locations: 12 Queen Street in Auckland, 45 Cameron Road in Tauranga and 8 Riccarton Road in Christchurch. That makes the layout practical for a mixed portfolio rather than a single house in one suburb.

What one row tells you

Start with the Property ID and address, then record the landlord or owner, city and tenancy start date. The five compliance columns cover Heating, Insulation, Ventilation, Moisture & Drainage and Draught Stopping. A row with five Y entries has all five standard areas marked as met; a row with four Y entries and one N needs a targeted follow-up rather than another full inspection.

For example, the sample Tauranga property has insulation marked N and notes that the under-floor insulation needs a top-up. The Christchurch example has ventilation and draught stopping marked N, with an extractor fan still needed in the bathroom. Those notes turn a percentage into a work list for the owner, tradesperson or property manager.

When to update it

Update the row immediately after an inspection or contractor visit, not at the end of the month when details are easy to forget. Set the Next Inspection Due date at the same time; a 12-property landlord can then review upcoming dates each Friday in under 10 minutes.

The five Healthy Homes Standards

The Healthy Homes Standards sit under the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 and cover heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture ingress and drainage, and draught stopping. All private rental properties were required to meet the standards by 1 July 2025, so in 2026 a new tenancy checklist is a record of current compliance and outstanding remedial work, not a future-only planning tool.

The heating standard is based on the required heating capacity for the main living room, calculated using the property's size and other prescribed factors. It is not enough to write that the house has a heater. Record the evidence behind the decision, such as the heater type, capacity and any Healthy Homes assessment, in your supporting files and use the Notes column for a short reference.

Statements and inspection evidence

Landlords must provide a compliance statement with new or renewed tenancy agreements, and tenants can request an updated statement during the tenancy. The statement identifies how the property meets each standard, so the Compliance Statement Filed column should not be treated as a substitute for the statement itself.

Keep invoices, photographs, heater specifications, insulation information and inspection notes with the spreadsheet. Inland Revenue record-keeping rules generally require business records to be kept for 7 years, while tenancy compliance evidence should remain accessible for the period needed to support the landlord's obligations and resolve disputes.

Use the official guidance for the technical test

Tenancy Services and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment publish the detailed requirements and exemptions. Check the official heating calculator and current guidance for the property rather than relying on a blanket rule such as one heater per house. For example, a 120-square-metre property with a 2.4-kilowatt heater may need a different assessment from a smaller, well-insulated 70-square-metre home.

A Y entry without evidence

The most common problem I see is a landlord marking every column Y because the property looks tidy. A portable heater in a bedroom does not by itself prove that the main living room meets the heating capacity requirement, and a thin layer of insulation does not prove that the required insulation level and condition are met.

If a tenant challenges the statement, the landlord may have to find the original assessment, contractor invoice or photographs months later. Three hours spent reconstructing a file can cost more than a short inspection completed properly at the start.

Missing ventilation and drainage details

Bathrooms and kitchens are frequent trouble spots. A fan that runs but does not vent outdoors, or a fan with no effective control, should not automatically be marked compliant. Likewise, a dry-looking room on inspection day does not prove that gutters, downpipes, ground moisture and drainage are dealing with water correctly.

Consider a Christchurch rental where the bathroom extractor fan is missing. A $350 fan may become a $900 job after electrical work, ceiling access and repainting are added. Leaving the row at N and recording the action in Notes is safer than marking Y and losing the issue in a general maintenance inbox.

Paperwork and dates falling out of step

Another costly error is updating the physical work but not the compliance statement. A landlord may install insulation in May, leave the statement marked as filed from the old inspection and miss the change when the tenancy is renewed. The spreadsheet separates Compliance Statement Filed from the five standards so that paperwork does not disappear behind an overall percentage.

Finally, vague notes such as check later are difficult to act on. Write the defect, responsible person and expected date: bathroom extractor fan required, electrician booked, inspection due 05/02/2027. A specific note takes minutes to write and prevents a six-month-old repair from being treated as new.

A specific note takes minutes to write and prevents a six-month-old repair from being treated as new, and the same discipline keeps a contribution log clear when dates and amounts need to be checked later.

Attach it to an existing landlord task

Do not wait for a spare afternoon to maintain the workbook. Open it immediately after each inspection, rent review or contractor visit. If you manage 18 properties, review the Next Inspection Due column every Monday and contact the relevant owner when a date is within 30 days.

Use the same Property ID on inspection photos, invoices and contractor reports. For example, HH-002 should appear in the file name for the Tauranga insulation invoice as well as in the Checklist row. That small habit makes evidence much easier to retrieve.

Keep entries consistent

• Use Y only when you have checked the relevant standard and supporting evidence; use N when work or verification remains outstanding.
• Write one clear action in Notes, including the trade or owner responsible and a date where known.
• Enter dates as DD/MM/YYYY so an inspection due on 05/02/2027 is not confused with 2 May 2027.
• Save a dated copy before making a large portfolio update, such as HH-checklist-2026-07-21.xlsx.

Keep the five standards columns unchanged when adding properties so the Standards Met (of 5), Compliance % and Overall Status calculations continue to refer to the right fields. If you copy a row, replace the old address, owner, dates and notes rather than carrying across last year's evidence.

Know when Excel is no longer enough

This template is a good fit for a small portfolio where one person completes inspections and follows up repairs. Once 50 or more properties, several staff members or hundreds of open maintenance actions are involved, use property-management software or a system such as Xero or MYOB alongside a proper tenancy platform. Excel remains useful as an export or audit checklist, but it should not be the only place where legal notices, tenant communication and contractor jobs are controlled.