Fire Service bosses are seeking law changes making it compulsory for rental properties to have smoke alarms installed and maintained.

The Government today launched a new service to speed up the settlement of rental disputes between tenants and landlords.

The Government is facing growing calls to improve the lot of renters as increasing numbers of NZers are locked out of home ownership.

A coastal Northland property purchased for just $9000 in 1974 is commanding a price tag around $1.6 million.

The lawyer of woman who defended Cornwall Park Trust Board’s $170k lawsuit over back rent suspects her opponents may appeal.

Barfoot and Thompson has just released its annual landlord survey - and it revealed most are planning to put rents up by about 5 per cent.

Auckland landlords are hiking rents amid fears of big rates increases next year on the back of spiralling property values.

A "warrant of fitness" scheme for all rental housing may be on the agenda whoever wins the election in September, a new survey has found.

Landlords are too lenient when a tenant falls behind in rent or causes damage, property managers say.

A landlord whose property was left in squalor by a tenant owing more than $6k rent and another who caused $28,000 damage, says renting is risky.

For rent: a $220 a week room on Auckland's North Shore complete with a "summer kitchen".

A landlord tried to rent a North Shore studio which had the kitchen, bathroom and laundry in the same room.

First time landlords are being warned to check how much tax they may need to pay on rental incomes ahead of the July 7 deadline.

An Auckland landlord wants tenants to rent his caravan without a toilet or shower at his Sandringham property, advertising the "Arabian nights" bargain at $200 a week.

Yong Xin Chen bought a leasehold $2.4 million Greenlane property from the Cornwall Park Trust Board expecting to develop it, the High Court has been told.

A woman who walked away from her multi-million dollar Auckland house has failed to get legal costs in a battle over freezing assets.

'Cave' dwellers will officially get top priority for social housing under new rules that kicked in this week.

Restored cottage on Rangitoto will soon take paying holidaymakers back to 1930s.

NZ could have had a superannuation pot of gold worth $278b by next year had it kept a compulsory savings scheme set up in 1974, a financial industry body claims.

Average Auckland apartment sale prices rose more than a third in the past two years yet rents were static. But that could be about to change.

Auckland landlords are making more capital gains off their rental properties than those elsewhere, a trend predicted to speed up in the next few years.

State houses will have to be leak-free, well-ventilated and contain an electric light in each room to get a warrant of fitness.

A new book is out to help landlords, with a series of forms ranging from notices to increase rent to a dog clause document.

Renters are paying up to $70 more a week than they were four years ago in some of Auckland's city fringe suburbs.

Police are trying to track down the owner of an Auckland rental property bought for almost $1 million last year which was destroyed by the young tenants.

Changes in design, funding and land use will deliver healthy, sustainable communities, writes Glen Sowry.