COMMENT: How much is too much

Recently we had a friend call us. She lives in Melbourne but has a rental property in West Auckland. Her tenant recently moved out of that property, so she had come over to see how it was going. She wanted me to go to visit the now vacant property, carry out a full property inspection, and see what would need to be done to keep the place compliant.

The property has been managed by a large real estate firm, but I could see problems immediately. There was an iron burn mark in the living room carpet, there were holes cut into the wall lining to allow for a sound system installation, some of the curtains had been ripped and were hanging loose, and all of the lightshades had disappeared.

There had been no claims on the tenants for the damage and the entire bond had been refunded. So that’s a few hundred dollars down the drain, but no point in going there. I produced my property inspection form and tape measure and got busy.

By measuring up the living room and entering those dimensions into the Tenancy Services online calculator I found that the living area will need 6.2kw of heating. There is an open doorway from the living area into the main hall, so a door will need to be installed in that doorway. Otherwise the legally defined living area will include all the hallway and front foyer and will need more power to heat. There is a flued wood burner already installed with a label that says 9.2kw, but she’ll need to check that it’s compliant.