PropertyTalk.com - Property Management

Built a free maintenance & Healthy Homes logbook for landlords — feedback wanted

LandyLogbook — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 01:56:50 GMT

Hi all,

We're two university students who built Landy (landylogbook.com) — a free shared logbook for self-managing landlords and tenants. Full disclosure: we made it, so take this as a "here's what we built, keen for honest feedback" post rather than an ad.

The idea came from a common problem: a tenant reports something small (a dripping tap, a loose towel rail) over text or a phone call, it gets lost or forgotten, and months later it's a much bigger repair. Landy gives both sides a shared board — tenant reports an issue with a photo in under a minute, it moves through open/in progress/done, and everyone can see where it's at. It also keeps Healthy Homes compliance evidence (statements, invoices, photos) organised per property, so it's not scattered across emails and a shoebox of receipts.

It's aimed specifically at landlords self-managing 1-8 properties rather than agencies, and it's free to set up.

Given how much collective experience is in this forum, I'd genuinely value any feedback — what's missing, what wouldn't work for how you actually manage your rentals, or whether this solves a real problem for you at all. Happy to answer questions here too.

Thanks for reading,
Bailey & Nick

Painting an old property while you've got tenants is risky

donna — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 03:56:02 GMT

The landlord takes the tenants to the Tenancy Tribunal for $7000; however, the tenants come out on top and are awarded $10000. But the story is much more interesting and a HUGE warning to LLs with older properties....

See attached.

The short of the story -

The tenants lodged an application on 27 April 2025 seeking compensation and exemplary damages for breaches of sections 38, 45(1)(b) and 45(1)(c) of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (RTA). The tenants subsequently amended and itemised their claims as follows:

a. Full rent refund on the basis that the premises are uninhabitable for the period from 27 February until the tenancy ends at weekly rent of $620;

b. Cleaning costs (materials and time ) of $2,500;

c. Replacement of contaminated appliances of $2,800 (in addition to $2,000 already paid by the landlord to the tenants for a replacement washing machine and dryer);

d. Medical expenses and sick leave of $5,600;

e. Consequential and emotional damages, including trauma, disruption of daily life and time lost of $43,100;

f. Ongoing inconvenience and health monitoring of $5,000;

g. Potential future health risks resulting from lead exposure of $100,000;

h. Recognition of serious health harm and risk exposure of $75,000;

i. The filing fee paid of $27.

It's an interesting story and you can see the LL did not set out to do anything untoward but ignorance is no excuse and he got off really lightly.

Never underestimate the lengths motivated people will go to......

In relation to health impacts, on 10 March, Mr McCombs was feeling very unwell with headaches, blurred vision, and kidney pain. He believes this was caused by elevated lead levels in his blood. A blood test conducted that day later returned a result of 0.14 umol/L (<0.24). According to Health NZ blood guidelines (produced in evidence by the landlord) this level is within normal background levels of exposure.

34. Mr McCombs also states that he experienced the same symptoms again and visited the Hospital Emergency Department on 28 March. The doctor initially indicated that it could be a gastro illness and advised that they could not test for lead. Mr McCombs then went to the After-Hours clinic but they could not do a lead test either. Mr McCombs did not produce any evidence of his visits to ED or After-Hours such as discharge notes or other written records.

35. A blood test conducted on 31 March showed a result of 0.15 umol/L (<0.24). Again, according to Health NZ blood guidelines (produced in evidence by the landlord), this level is within normal background levels of exposure.

Maybe all LLs should have professional indemnity insurance on top of all the other insurances!

There are still Landlords in NZ that make bad decisions

donna — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 21:27:40 GMT

In Kapiti, a Landlord of a commercial storage unit with an office made a really dumb decision that ended up costing him $$ thousands.

Renting his windowless commercial property as a residential tenancy to a man and his very young child was not doing them a favour and it was illegal.

Worth a read.

Good Auckland Apartment PM?

chook — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 01:25:11 GMT

My original Auckland Apartment property manager was First Street who were excellent. They have since been bought out by Viaduct City Rentals who I am finding out are making basic PM mistakes and are very average.
Anyone know of a good Auckland Apt PM please?