Buying a house with a pool

Before you sign, ask the council three things: when the pool was last inspected, what the result was, and when the next inspection is due. The duty to restrict access transfers with the house, the re-inspection arrives whether or not you were told about it, and a barrier that needs replacing is $5,000 to $25,000 (CheckMyBuilder) plus its own building consent.

What the law makes you responsible for

Section 162C(1) requires every residential pool that is filled or partly filled to have physical barriers that restrict access by unsupervised children under five. Subsection (4) lists who must ensure that: the owner of the pool, the pool operator, the owner of the land, the occupier, a hire-purchase buyer, and in some cases a lessee. Auckland Council's plain-English version is that homeowners, tenants, landlords and property managers carry joint responsibility.

What to ask the council

• When was the pool last inspected, and did it pass? Section 162D requires inspection at least every 3 years, within 6 months before or after the pool's anniversary date.
• Is there a notice to fix on the property that has not been complied with?
• Was the barrier consented? The barrier needs its own building consent even where the pool did not (Schedule 1 clause 23(2)).
• Is the pool recorded as empty? Auckland Council asks owners to contact it for an inspection before refilling a pool it has recorded as empty.

The anniversary date, which nobody explains

Section 162D(5) defines it: the date the code compliance certificate or certificate of acceptance was issued for the pool; or, for a pool that needed no consent, the date notice was given under section 7 of the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act 1987, or failing that, the date the council first knew the pool existed. That date, not the sale, sets the inspection clock.

Walk the barrier yourself

You can do the whole check in ten minutes at an open home: height, gaps, what is stacked outside the fence, whether the gate swings away and latches itself from any position, and where the latch sits. Run our fence checker on your phone while you are standing there. It tells you which clause each answer comes from, and it never tells you a barrier is compliant — only a council or an independently qualified pool inspector can say that.

What it costs to own once you have it

If there is a spa instead

A spa is a small heated pool if its water surface area is 5 m² or less. It needs a means of restricting access when it is not in use, and a complying cover can be it where the walls are at least 760 mm above the ground and inhibit climbing. Since 26 November 2024, a small heated pool with a complying safety cover is outside the 3-yearly inspection duty. Spa pool rules.