Residential Building Work and Licensed Building Practitioners

Since 1 March 2012 if you are undertaking any ‘residential building work’, which relates to the design and structural integrity or weather tightness of a house or apartment building, now known as Residential Building Work (RBW), it’s highly likely you will need to the help of a Licensed Building Practitioner (LBP) to either complete or supervise the work. It will be an offence for RWB to be undertaken unless it is completed by an LBP.

What is RBW?
RBW is work which is essential to the structural integrity of a residential house or a small

Due Diligence Is Still Required For Mortgagee Sales

In these recessionary times and with the number of mortgagee sales currently being exercised by Banks in New Zealand, investors and purchasers need to be very vigilant and aware of some of the legal ramifications including the need for proper due diligence to be carried out on a property being sold.

In purchasing a property being sold by the “mortgagee”, you are entering into a contract that is significantly different in nature from an Agreement entered into in other more common circumstances. This type of Agreement is likely to be significantly in the

Cross lease titles were introduced around the 1970s as a temporary form of title however they have endured for far longer than what was originally anticipated. These titles each incorporate an undivided share of the underlying freehold land together with a 999 lease of the structures on the site which are shown on the flats plan as prepared by a surveyor. The initial advantages of cross lease titles were;

(a) They allowed for the division of head titles where a ‘subdivision’ could not be completed due to the area of the planned new Lots being under the minimum subdivisable

BOUNDARIES, LIMITATION AS TO PARCELS – FENCING AND THE LAW

BOUNDARIES: When purchasing a property the location of any fences or hedges on the property are not necessarily the legal boundary. In addition, under the standard Law Society Agreement for Sale and Purchase except in the case of a vacant section the vendor is not under any obligation to point out the boundaries of the property. If the boundary pegs are not in place their location can only be identified by a surveyor. It is important to establish where the actual boundaries of a property lie and whether you

INVESTOR MIGRATION POLICY CHANGES – Residential property development to become acceptable investments under New Zealand Immigration Investors Category.

On 6 May 2011, the Minister of Immigration, Dr Jonathan Coleman announced a number of changes to the Immigration policy. What is changing in relation to residential property investments ? As from 25 July 2011, an investment of at least $1.5 million in a residential property development will now qualify as an acceptable investment for the purposes of obtaining a residence visa under the Investor Category set out by Immigration New Zealand. Note however that the following conditions