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Property Briefs

July 7, 2025

Business Ethics, First Job, House, Media, Politics & Government, Social Media, Trusts

Healthy home standards compliance from 1 July 2025

First introduced in 2019, healthy home standards are the minimum legal standards expected of rental properties in New Zealand. These include:

Heating (provision of functioning and fixed (not portable), heaters in the main living room)
Ceiling and underfloor insulation, and
Adequate ventilation (functioning doors and windows, and extractor fans in the kitchen and bathrooms).

From 1 July 2025, all landlords are responsible for ensuring their rental properties comply with healthy homes standards (and continue to comply with them over time). Landlords who do not comply will be in breach of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 and can be penalised up to $7,200 per breach. Landlords who are ignorant of these changes or disorganised will not be excused.

Landlords in new or renewed tenancy agreements must include a signed statement detailing the property’s compliance with the standards. Failing to do so can result in a penalty. There are also penalties to the landlord if they provide misleading information in compliance statements.

If you are a tenant and you are concerned that your rental property does not comply with healthy homes standards, we recommend having a friendly chat to your landlord first. Failing that, please contact us and we can help you explore your options.

On the other hand, if you are a landlord and are concerned about your obligations under the healthy homes standards, please come and see us for advice.

Sunset clauses – the new bill introduced into Parliament

The Property Law (Sunset Clauses) Amendment Bill was introduced to Parliament on 9 April 2025 and is tracking towards its first reading. The bill is aimed at restricting sellers developing vacant plots of land from using ‘sunset clauses’ to cancel sale and purchase agreements. It also provides an extra layer of protection to buyers who, in good faith, have made the commitment to purchase the property.

In this context, a ‘sunset clause’ is a provision added to an agreement for the sale and purchase of a plot of land in development which allows the seller or buyer the option to cancel the agreement if the development is not complete by the specified date.

There have previously been situations in which sellers have used these clauses to cancel an agreement, where there have been delays in development, only to then go and list the property at a higher price.

This legislation would require the seller to obtain the buyer’s written consent to cancel the agreement under a sunset clause. There would also be the requirement to give sufficient notice of, and reasons for, the proposed cancellation to the buyer in advance. This is the extra layer of protection given to the buyer.

If the buyer does not consent to the agreement being cancelled, the seller would need to apply to the High Court for an order permitting the cancellation. On the seller’s application, the court would only make the order if it is satisfied that its making would be ‘just and equitable in all the circumstances.’ The court would consider various factors including whether the seller has acted unreasonably or in bad faith, the reason for the delay in completing the development, whether the land has increased in value and the effect of the cancellation on the buyer.

If this law is passed and you are a seller or buyer who seeks to activate a sunset clause, please get in touch with us – we would be happy to assist you.

Real estate agent commission – claim or not to claim?

Before a real estate agent lists a seller’s property, the parties enter into a ‘listing agreement’ or ‘agency agreement,’ authorising the agent to sell the property on the seller’s behalf.

The real estate agent receives a commission (a percentage of the sale proceeds) for introducing the buyer to the property. The real estate agent usually takes their commission out of the deposit the buyer pays when the agreement for sale and purchase becomes unconditional.

However, there are some situations in which an agent is not entitled to be paid their commission:

Where there is no listing agreement in place
If an agreement for sale and purchase does not become unconditional and is cancelled, and
If the property is pulled from the market and the seller cancels the listing agreement (but note that the agent may still charge a fee).

If you are considering selling your property and have any questions about entering into a listing agreement, please come and see us for advice first.

DISCLAIMER: All the information published in Property Speaking is true and accurate to the best of the authors’ knowledge. It should not be a substitute for legal advice. No liability is assumed by the authors or publisher for losses suffered by any person or organisation relying directly or indirectly on this newsletter. Views expressed are those of individual authors, and do not necessarily reflect the view of Edmonds Judd. Articles appearing in Property Speaking may be reproduced with prior approval from the editor and credit given to the source.
Copyright, NZ LAW Limited, 2022. Editor: Adrienne Olsen. E-mail: [email protected]. Ph: 029 286 3650

Estate Planning and the Unexpected: A Family Law Story

May 23, 2025

Employment, Estate, Health Issues, House, Latest news, Social Media, Trusts

A tear trickled down Luke’s face as the hearse carrying his late father, Steve, drove away from the funeral home and down the road. It had been a beautiful service and his brother Bob, who owned a burger bar, provided some excellent catering. Steve had been a wonderful father, and had prepared for this moment by getting his Will and Enduring Power of Attorney sorted out nice and early.

As Steve’s executor, Luke immediately set about administering his father’s estate. It was an immense job, so he enlisted the assistance of Edmonds Judd. They met with him and explained the administration process and gathered from him an idea of Steve’s assets and liabilities. They applied to the High Court for Probate and contacted the banks, insurers and real estate agent on Luke’s behalf. They found the odd liability, such as a small credit card debt, and closed any outstanding accounts.

Luke was relieved. This was starting to look easy!

He put down the phone after talking to his helpful solicitor and poured himself a nice cup of tea. Then, just as he was sitting down, he heard a knock on the door.

“Who could that be?” he wondered aloud. He wasn’t too surprised, as he had had many callers recently offering their condolences. He was surprised however, to open the door to see himself staring back at him. Luke blinked in surprise.

“Luke”, the doppelganger said. “I am your brother. Your long-lost twin brother, as a matter of fact. I was adopted when we were just babies. I’m guessing from the look on your face that Steve never told you?”

Luke was shocked. The stranger was indeed identical to him, right down to the freckles on his nose and the way he turned up the cuff on his jeans. The stranger continued.

“My name is Han, and it’s nice to meet you. Listen, I know this is awkward timing, but my understanding is that Steve left behind a sizable estate. I’m going to need to some of that money, as I have significant gambling debts I need to pay off. That won’t be a problem, right? After all, it’s only right that I get a slice of the pie”.

Luke invited Han in for a drink, and pondered what to do next. Once Han had taken a few old photos of Steve and left, Luke picked up the phone and called his solicitor back, explaining the whole thing. His solicitor was very helpful.

“You see Luke, sometimes children who are left out of their parent’s Will can make a claim under the Family Protection Act 1955. The law says that parents have a moral duty to provide for their children. However, because Han was adopted out as a child, he won’t be able to successfully make a claim. The Adoption Act 1955 changes the legal relationship between adopted child and birth parent. Steve did not have to provide for Han in his Will”.

“I don’t know,” said Luke. “Is it really fair that Han not get anything out of the Estate?”

“Well, if you and the other beneficiaries of the Estate feel that way, you can enter what’s called a Deed of Family Arrangement”. It would record that the beneficiaries have come to an agreement to do something different to what’s in the Will, and that would allow us to make a distribution to Han. You would need to get all of the beneficiaries to agree, though”.

Luke thanked his solicitor and hung up the phone. He had a lot to think about. He decided to give his brother Bob a call, to see what he thought. But Bob was having his own problems at his burger bar…

Jamie Graham

Are you an artist, a composer, an author? Are you in a relationship? If so, then you need to seriously consider a contracting out agreement.

May 19, 2025

House, Media, News, Online, Property, Relationships, Social Media

Are you an artist, a composer, an author? Are you in a relationship? If so, then you need to seriously consider a contracting out agreement.

Copyright is treated as relationship property for the purposes of deciding who gets what at the end of a relationship. This means that, if you separate, your ex could have a claim over the copyright in your work.

Owning copyright in your work means that you have the exclusive right to control how your work is used. Importantly, owning copyright means that you can prevent someone from making copies of your work. But, if it ends up in the hands of your ex? Well, that could lead to results that you won’t like. For example:

That novel you slaved over for weeks, months, and years part-time while you were working on a construction site during the day? Your ex might be able to sell copies of it after the relationship is over and make money from your efforts.
That series of paintings you lovingly painted and kept in your own private collection, while you successfully commercialised the rest of your works? Your ex might be able to have t-shirts made for sale with copies of those paintings in your private collection.
That carving you created painstakingly on your weekends off? Your ex might be able to flood the market with thousands of copies, devaluing your sculpture and the prestige.

If you want to avoid this outcome, then your best option to reduce this risk is to enter a contracting out agreement with your partner. Under a contracting out agreement, you and your partner can agree who gets what in the unfortunate event that your relationship doesn’t stand the test of time. If you want a contracting out agreement, you’ll need to see a lawyer to make sure that you comply with the legal requirements for these agreements and ensure your best chance of any agreement being enforceable in Court.

Consumer Guarantees Act vs Fair Trading Act

May 5, 2025

Property, Relationships, Retirement, Social Media, Trusts

The purpose of these two laws are often confused: the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 (CGA) and the Fair Trading Act 1986 (FTA) both provide legislative protection for consumers. However, they both address different aspects of consumer rights and business conduct.

The Consumer Guarantees Act 1993: The CGA only applies to goods and services bought for personal, domestic or household use, and not to those purchased for business purposes. The CGA states that goods must be of acceptable quality, fit for purpose and match the description provided by the seller. You cannot contract out of the CGA when you are dealing with consumers, even if you want to do so. There is a limited ability to contract out in business-to-business transactions provided certain requirements are met.

The CGA is important in that it ensures that goods and services bought for domestic use meet certain standards following their sale.

The Fair Trading Act 1986: In contrast, the FTA provides protection for consumers from misleading and deceptive conduct of sellers in trade. The FTA cannot be contracted out of, except where both parties are in trade.

The FTA also promotes fair practice and conduct in relation to the supply of goods and services, meaning businesses must compete effectively and fairly. The CGA ensures all businesses operate on a level playing field, particularly for smaller businesses that could be taken advantage of by larger corporations.

If you find yourself in a position where false claims have been made in respect of machinery, livestock or equipment, you may have a claim under the FTA.

In addition, there may be other forms of redress ensuring fair treatment of consumers and business owners.

Failure to return an employee’s personal information led to expensive results for an employer

January 21, 2025

Commercial, Employment, First Job, Latest news, Media, News, Online, Relationships, Social Media, Trusts

In a recent decision of the Human Rights Review Tribunal an employer has been ordered to pay an ex-employee damages of $60,000 for interfering with the employee’s privacy.

The CEO invited the employee out of the office for a coffee meeting. During that meeting, the CEO gave the employee a letter detailing concerns about the employee’s performance. While they were out of the office, a director of the employer took the employee’s work laptop, personal USB flash drive, and personal cell phone from the employee’s desk without the employee’s consent or knowledge.

About a week later, the employee’s employment was terminated.

The employer later returned the personal cell phone, but did not return the personal information that had been stored on the work laptop or the employee’s USB drive.

Despite several requests over a long period of time, the employer failed to return the employee’s personal information and USB drive. Instead, the employer effectively blocked the employee’s attempt to obtain the return of his information, engaging in a range of tactics that delayed the return of the information.

The Tribunal found that the employer had collected the employee’s personal information when uplifting the laptop, cell phone and USB. It went onto find that the employer had breached information privacy principles 1, 2, and 4 of the Privacy Act 1993 because the employer had not collected the personal information for a lawful purpose or directly from the employee, and the personal information was collected in circumstances that were unfair and constituted an unreasonable intrusion on the employee’s personal affairs.

The Tribunal went on to determine that the breaches were an interference with the employee’s privacy as they had caused significant humiliation, injury to feelings and loss of dignity to the employee. In support of this finding, evidence had been provided by the employee that three weeks after the collection of his information, he was formally diagnosed with acute anxiety and depression, prescribed antidepressants, and sleeping medication. The employee had also started attending counselling.

The employer argued that the health conditions were caused by the loss of work, not by breaches of the collection principles. However, the collection does not need to be the sole cause of the consequences suffered.

Emails and other correspondence in evidence showed that the health conditions were attributable to distress about the collection of the information, including the inability to retrieve it, and not knowing who had seen it, and who was using and sharing the personal information

The Tribunal also found that the collection had caused the employee loss and detriment when he couldn’t complete his tax return on time, leading to a penalty. It also negatively affected his interests as it impacted his health, his career prospects and removed access for him to a personal USB and he did not have access to all his personal information that had been on his laptop.

The Tribunal found that an award of damages of $60,000 appropriately reflected the significant level of humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings experienced by the employee because of the wrongful collection of his personal information.

A prompt return of the personal information wrongly collected would have significantly reduced the humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings experienced and therefore the amount of any award.

This claim was decided under the Privacy Act 1993 because the actions all occurred prior to that act being replaced by the Privacy Act 2020. However, it is still relevant to conduct under the 2020 Act – information privacy principles 1 – 4 and the test to show an interference with privacy has remained largely unchanged.

The decision is: BMN v Stonewood Group Ltd [2024] NZHRRT 64.

Joanne Dickson

Fallen in love with a beach house over the holidays? Going to AirBnB it? Rent it out for a fixed term? Slow down …

December 20, 2024

House, Latest news, Media, News, Property, Social Media

If you’re buying a beach house and planning to rent it out or Airbnb it when you’re not using it, there are some things you might want to consider:

If you are going to rent the property out – make sure that it complies with the healthy homes standards. If not, consider how much it might cost you to make it compliant.
If you are going to rent it out with Airbnb, you don’t have to comply with the health homes standards.
Either way, you might want to consider how difficult it might be to manage the property if you live a couple of hours drive away from the property. Think damage, parties, meth use or production, and cleaning up at the end of each stay.
Consider additional costs for operating an Airbnb. Some councils increase rates for temporary accommodation arrangements like Airbnb.
You will need to make sure that you obtain insurance that covers you if your Airbnb or rental tenant damage the property.
Again, get yourself some tax advice.
Finally, if you are renting, make sure you know your obligations as a landlord and how you can go about legally ending the tenancy.

We’re open again from 6^th January to help you with your property purchases and conveyancing needs. We can also help you with ownership structures, negotiating property sharing agreements, succession planning, and any disputes that might arise.

Joanne Dickson

I stand by what I said! Can I defend a claim for defamation?

December 20, 2024

Social Media

There are defences to defamation, but they can be difficult and expensive to prove. We recommend getting legal advice before you publish because the defences are technical and can be difficult to prove.

Some of the key defences are:

Truth: you might know something is true, but actually proving it is a whole different matter. You also have to prove the truth of any defamatory implication that might be derived from your statement. It’s also worth keeping in mind that defamation law works on the presumption that the defamatory statement is false, so the onus is on you to prove.

Honest opinion: if you can show that what you have said is your honest opinion, then you might have a defence. Your statement must be recognisable as being an expression of an opinion. But, that honest opinion has to be based on true facts that the person reading your statement can use to assess the validity of the opinion for themselves. The defence can be destroyed if your opinion isn’t genuinely held by you or you made the statement for an improper purpose.

Responsible communication on a matter of public interest: there are two elements to this defence. First, you have to show that the communication was responsible. There are a lot of factors involved in showing this, including showing the steps you took to verify the allegation, the reliability of any source you’ve relied on, and whether you have sought comment from the target of your statement and accurately reported their response. Secondly, you need to show that you were commenting on a matter of public interest. This doesn’t mean something that is interesting (like gossip), but things of substantial concern that effect the welfare of citizens, for example, the management of publicly funded services by local councils.

Common law qualified privilege: this defence covers situations where you have a moral, social, or legal duty to communicate your statement and that the recipient of your statement has a corresponding interest in receiving that communication. A common situation covered by qualified privilege is when a prospective employer calls you for a reference for someone that they are thinking of employing. It is unlikely that you will be able to successfully rely on qualified privilege if your statement is published to the world at large – like in a public Facebook group.

Keep safe over the holiday season!

Joanne Dickson

Someone posted something awful about me online! What do I do?

December 20, 2024

Media, Online, Social Media

If someone has made a harmful/damaging statement about you or your business online, your first step should be to notify the online platform that is hosting the offending content – e.g. Trademe, Facebook, etc. Platform hosts often have an easy method to allow you to report the post. On Facebook for example, if you hit the three dots at the top of the post, the popup menu includes a “report post” option.

You can ask Netsafe for help. Netsafe’s services are free of charge. It is approved under the Harmful Digital Communications Act (HDCA) to investigate complaints about online abuse and intimidation, like bullying, harassment, and revenge porn – which can include online defamatory statements.

Netsafe has relationships with many online platforms and can negotiate on your behalf to have the material taken down.

Another option is to send the author of the content a cease and desist letter – a lawyer can help with this.

The last option is to bring proceedings in court under the Defamation Act – again, a lawyer can help you with this too.

Wishing you a defamation-free holiday season!

Joanne Dickson

Social Media

Healthy home standards compliance from 1 July 2025

Sunset clauses – the new bill introduced into Parliament

Real estate agent commission – claim or not to claim?

Get in touch today, we’d love to talk.