School houses and healthy home standards
School houses fall into three categories:
- Core houses – needed to help recruit and retain principals and teaching staff (school boards mainly manage these).
- Non-core houses – are no longer required for the above purpose and are managed by the Ministry of Education (over time, they will be disposed of by the Crown).
- Caretaker houses – school boards manage these the same way as core houses.
What is your board responsible for?
For core and caretaker houses, your board is responsible for:
- Setting and reviewing the rent
- Collecting the bond and rent
- Carrying out property inspections
- Insuring the house at replacement value
- Paying rates (this varies depending on who is renting the house)
- Depreciation
- Maintenance and capital works
- Legislative compliance (including meeting healthy home standards).
Planned house maintenance is included as a board-funded item in the school's 10-year property plan.
Your board keeps the rental income and uses it for the upkeep and maintenance of the house.
If all landlord responsibilities have been fulfilled, your board may use any remaining income for other school expenses.
You can read more about your board's responsibilities for school housesopen_in_new on the Ministry of Education's website.
How does your board meet healthy home standards?
One of your board's key responsibilities is to keep any core or caretaker houses safe and healthy.
Boards must ensure any houses they manage comply with the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Regulations 2019open_in_new within 90 days of any new tenancy.
These houses must meet heating, insulation, ventilation, draught stopping, moisture ingress, and drainage standards.
Tenancy agreements must include a signed statement that the landlord (your board) will comply with the healthy home standards.
Landlords (your board) must also retain relevant records or documents of compliance with these standards.
Records could include, but are not limited to:
- Reports or records of property inspections
- Records of installation, maintenance, or repair
- Product manuals or manufacturer's information (for example, the manual for an installed heat pump/air conditioning unit)
- Certificates, such as codes of compliance or building warrants of fitness
- Local authority reports or documents, like a Land Information Memorandum (LIM) report.
More details on each healthy homes standard, including what landlords need to do to comply with, are available on the Tenancy Services websiteopen_in_new.
Questions your board could ask
- Do we have any core or caretaker houses?
- Are we meeting our responsibilities in managing these houses?
- Do these houses meet the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Regulations 2019?
Templates, resources, and references
Click on the link(s) below to access the templates, resources, and references related to this topic.
These may download or open in a separate browser depending on your device.
Ministry of Education
- School housesopen_in_new
- Maintaining school housesopen_in_new
- Tenants in school housesopen_in_new
- Surplus school propertyopen_in_new