Health & Safety Obligations For Landlords

Whether your Christchurch investment property has suffered willful damage, careless negligence or general wear and tear, rentals require regular repairs and maintenance. As a landlord, you’re not responsible for your tenant’s day to day actions. But if electrical repairs or maintenance are being done on your property, it’s now classed as a work site.

Changes to the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) mean property owners and managers now have extra duties to ensure everyone on their property is safe. Do you know about your new obligations?

Under the new legislation, property owners and managers are Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU). If there is work happening on the property you own or manage, you’re now responsible for the health and safety of your tenants and the tradies while they are on the property.

How Responsible Are You?

The new act means it is now your full responsibility to ensure the tradies you hire are experienced, qualified and highly regarded. If you decide to hire a friend who isn’t a qualified electrician to carry out electrical work for your property and someone becomes injured, you are directly liable as you have not carried out proper health and safety.

The Registered Master Electricians at Mister Sparky are SiteSafe registered and fully comply with all health and safety regulations when working on your property, protecting both your tenants and you.

While it’s your responsibility to ensure your tenants are safe while the work is being carried out, you’re not expected to become an expert on all things electrical… or whatever it is that’s being repaired. Once you hire a tradesperson to do the work, they become the PCBU instead and are responsible for promoting health and safety on their site. Just make sure you hire qualified, experienced tradespeople who have the skills to do the job, and you’ll be covered.

Tenants Must Follow Instructions

Your tenants need to follow reasonable instructions while work is being carried out. For example, our Mister Sparky electricians may ask you to keep clear of where the repairs are taking place.

You may be responsible for communicating with the tenant to organise access for our electricians, and ensuring there are no dangers for us when we arrive. For example, dogs may not like strangers coming onto their turf, so we would appreciate your tenants securing any animals on the property.

If the worst does happen and someone is injured as a result of work happening on your rental property, it’s vital that WorkSafe NZ can see all reasonable health and safety precautions have been taken. The key word here is reasonable. For example, if your tenants cannot follow reasonable instructions and they get injured, then your tenant will be liable under the HSWA, not Mister Sparky and not you.

It’s worth mentioning again, that this is why it’s important all electrical work is carried out by Registered Master Electricians. By choosing Mister Sparky you can prove you’ve taken the best steps to protect everyone’s health and safety.

What's The Health and Safety Risk?

If work is being done on your rental property, as the owner you can receive 5 years in prison, a $600,000 fine or both if your tenants are injured. Simply failing to comply with the health and safety regulations could result in a fine between $100,000 and $300,000.

Mister Sparky will make sure you, your tenants and your Christchurch rental property are fully taken care of under the new act, so you don’t have to worry about large fines or jail time. We also recognise that your rental property is an investment worth protecting. We’ll be there when you need us, and our friendly team can work with you, your property manager or rental agency to see that all electrical issues are solved properly and promptly.

We want to make sure you and your tenants are as safe as possible while electrical repairs work are being carried out. Health and safety is Mister Sparky’s first priority. When your rental becomes a workplace, your tenants will receive the safest and best service possible, while protecting you from any future liabilities.

Want to know more about electrical maintenance, repairs or test and tag responsibilities for your Christchurch rental property? Contact the friendly team at Mister Sparky on 0800 842 248