Let Me Be Clear: We Are Not Urging Landlords to Delay Installation of Heating

In recent weeks I’ve had the misfortune of seeing my name in headlines suggesting that I have “urged” landlords not to install heating in rentals. This is incorrect but has been repeated in two Spinoff articles drawing on the original report – the first by Hayden Donnell and the second, yesterday, by Michael Andrew. I’d like to set the record straight.

I had told a reporter about Property Investors’ Federation findings that many tenants don’t want heat pumps. I explained that we believe tenants should be thought of as customers and it was a good idea to involve them in the heating decision and to talk to them first. If they want a heat pump then you might as well install one sooner than later. If your tenant doesn’t want a heat pump then you could take this into consideration and not put one in until you have to. This, as best I can tell, led to the front page headline “Landords urged to delay heating”.

This does not reflect the kind of organisation we are. While we represent private rental property providers, we operate as an industry group who acknowledge that tenants are a critical part of the rental industry. To be clear, the NZPIF doesn’t urge people to not install heating in their rentals.

Read the article in full here and comment on it on The BFD