Records of Title NZ — Reading a Title Like a Developer

The Facts

A Record of Title (formerly Certificate of Title) is the legal record of ownership for a property in New Zealand, maintained by Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand under the Land Transfer Act 2017. The title shows the registered owner(s), the legal description (lot, deposited plan, parcel ID), the type of estate (fee simple, leasehold, cross lease, unit title), and any registered interests such as mortgages, easements, covenants, caveats, and notices. Titles are ordered through LINZ for approximately NZ$8-15 each. A search copy is fine for due diligence; a guaranteed search copy is required for legal transactions.

A Developer's Take

$10-15 per title from LINZ. The legal record of who owns the property and what's registered against it. Mortgages, easements, covenants, caveats, leases, notices.

Read every interest, not just the owner name. The covenants are where the surprises live. Restrictive covenants from a developer's original subdivision can prohibit anything from secondary dwellings to fences over a certain height, decades after the original subdivision is built out.

The other thing to look at: the type of estate. Fee simple is the default and what most people assume. Cross lease, unit title, and leasehold are all different and have different rules around alterations, additions, and consenting. A cross lease site cannot be developed the same way as a fee simple site, even if the AUP zone is identical. Be careful of anything other than Fee Simple — we want easy sites and there's lots of them. Likely the deal you are looking at is cheap because it's leasehold, or has an uncooperative party in a cross lease. Cross leases can also be quickly identified in a legal description by the indication of "1/2 share", which may save you the time in getting a title searched.

Search copies are fine for due diligence. Guaranteed search copies are required for the actual settlement and any subsequent dealings.

The five-minute discipline: order the title before you make an offer. If you're going to walk away because of what's on it (which happens more than people expect), you'd rather walk away before you've negotiated price and committed lawyer fees.

Two related orders worth getting at the same time: the DP for the site geometry, and any registered easement instruments for the actual easement terms. Together they cost around $30 and save you guessing. If you're serious about the property you're looking to purchase you will inevitably get these documents.

When to use this

Pull a title every time you take a site seriously enough to model a deal. It is cheap enough to order on speculative sites and decisive enough to kill a deal early. Read the estate type first (fee simple, cross lease and unit title have very different development paths), then the registered interests — easements, covenants and right-of-way encumbrances are the most common sources of unwelcome surprises. A search copy is fine for DD; let your lawyer order the guaranteed search before settlement.