Guide
What a LIM tells you — and what it doesn’t
A LIM is one of the few documents in a New Zealand property purchase with a statute behind it, which is exactly why it gets over-trusted. It is a complete account of what one council holds — and that is a much narrower thing than a complete account of the property.
Part of How to research a property before buying in New Zealand.
What a LIM actually is
A Land Information Memorandum is a document a territorial authority produces, on request, summarising what that council holds about a particular piece of land. It is not a survey, an inspection or an assessment. It is a disclosure — the council opening its files on one address.
That makes it unusually reliable about one thing and silent about a great deal else. Where the council has a record, the LIM is the authoritative way to see it. Where it has none, the LIM says nothing — which reads on the page exactly like the property having no such issue.
A LIM and a property file are different documents
A LIM is a structured summary the Act defines. A property file is the underlying material — consent documents, plans, inspection records, correspondence — and it holds the detail a LIM only refers to.
Auckland Council puts the practical relationship plainly: a property file does not replace a LIM, and it recommends ordering both for a full view. It also notes that the file only includes work the council knows about, so work done without consent will not be in it.
Order the LIM first, then the file where the LIM raises a question you want the documents behind.
The sections below are what the law says
Each statement carries the provision it comes from and a link to the source. Everything else on this page is our own guidance on how to use the document.
What the Act requires a LIM to contain
These are the categories the legislation lists, stated as law with the provision beside each one — not our summary of what councils tend to do.
Natural hazards, and the impacts of climate change that make them worse. A LIM must identify each hazard and climate-change impact affecting the land; each potential one where the council is satisfied there is a reasonable possibility it may affect the land, now or in future; and the cumulative or combined effect of those. This duty is limited to what is known to the council. It was inserted into the Act and came into force on 1 July 2025, so a LIM issued before then was written to a narrower hazard requirement.
LGOIMA ss 44A(2)(a), 44B · New Zealand Legislation
Regional councils must pass their natural hazard information to the territorial authorities in their region, so a district council’s LIM is meant to reflect regional hazard knowledge rather than only its own.
LGOIMA s 44C · New Zealand Legislation
Other special features or characteristics of the land, including the likely presence of hazardous contaminants — but only where these are known to the council and are not already apparent from the district plan.
LGOIMA s 44A(2)(aa) · New Zealand Legislation
Private and public stormwater and sewerage drains, as shown in the council’s records. The qualifier matters: it is the council’s record of the drains, not a survey of them.
LGOIMA s 44A(2)(b) · New Zealand Legislation
Drinking water supply information — whether the land is supplied, by whom, and any conditions or exemptions applying to that supply.
LGOIMA s 44A(2)(bb) · New Zealand Legislation
Rates information, including any rates owing on the land, and — where the land sits in one — levy or targeted-rate obligations under the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act 2020 or the Urban Development Act 2020.
LGOIMA s 44A(2)(c), (ca), (cb) · New Zealand Legislation
Any consent, certificate, notice, order or requisition affecting the land or a building on it that the council has previously issued, under the Building Act 1991, the Building Act 2004 or any other Act — plus certificates issued by a building certifier, and anything notified to the council under the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2006.
LGOIMA s 44A(2)(d), (e), (ea) · New Zealand Legislation
Information about the use the land may be put to and the conditions attached to that use, along with anything notified to the council by a statutory organisation with power to classify land or buildings, or by a network utility operator.
LGOIMA s 44A(2)(f), (g), (h) · New Zealand Legislation
Beyond the required categories, a council may include any other information about the land it considers relevant, at its own discretion. This is why two councils’ LIMs can look quite different, and why extra material in one is not a benchmark another has failed to meet.
LGOIMA s 44A(3) · New Zealand Legislation
How you get one, and what the council must do
The process is statutory, which is why it is broadly the same wherever you buy. The fee and any faster option are the council’s to set.
Anyone may apply to a territorial authority for a LIM about any land in that district, and the Act sets the issue period at 10 working days. You do not need to own the property or have an offer on it.
LGOIMA s 44A(1) · New Zealand Legislation
The application must be in writing and must be accompanied by whatever charge the council has fixed for it. Fees and turnaround options — including faster processing — are set by each council rather than by the Act.
LGOIMA s 44A(4) · New Zealand Legislation
A council has no grounds to withhold the categories of information the Act lists, or to refuse to issue a LIM once one has been requested.
LGOIMA s 44A(6) · New Zealand Legislation
What a LIM is worth as evidence
A LIM carries a specific, limited evidential status, and two related duties sit alongside it.
In the absence of proof to the contrary, a LIM is sufficient evidence of the correctness of the required information in it — as at the date it was issued. That date is doing real work: the evidential weight attaches to the day the LIM was produced, not to the day you read it.
LGOIMA s 44A(5) · New Zealand Legislation
Councils, regional councils and water organisations are protected from civil and criminal liability for making natural hazard information available in good faith. The protection is on releasing hazard information, not on withholding it.
LGOIMA s 44D · New Zealand Legislation
A real estate licensee is not required to discover hidden or underlying defects, but must disclose known defects to a customer. Where hidden or underlying defects appear likely to a reasonably competent licensee, they must either obtain evidence or expert advice from the client that the land is not affected, or make sure the customer is told of the significant potential risk so they can seek their own expert advice. A licensee must not keep acting for a client who directs that such information be withheld.
Professional Conduct and Client Care Rules 2012, rr 10.7–10.8 · New Zealand Legislation
Reading a LIM well
Most people read a LIM looking for a problem and stop when they do not find one. The more useful habit is to read it as a map of the council’s knowledge — noticing where it is detailed, where it is thin, and where it is silent.
Worth doing, roughly in this order
- Check the date before anything else. A LIM describes what the council held on the day it was issued, and a vendor-supplied one can be months or years old — long enough for consents, notices and hazard modelling to have changed.
- Read the consent history against what you can see. Every alteration you noticed should trace to a consent, and every consent should have been signed off — a consent with no code compliance certificate is among the most consequential entries on the document.
- Read the hazard section as the council’s knowledge, stated. The duty covers hazards and potential hazards known to the council — which is not the same as a determination about your building.
- Check the drainage information for private drains crossing the property, and public lines running under or near anything built — a frequent surprise on additions and pools.
- Note anything the council has added at its discretion, and treat it as a signal. A council does not usually volunteer material without a reason.
- Take the whole thing to your solicitor, alongside the Record of Title. Reading a LIM is partly a legal exercise, and the parts that matter most often look procedural.
If you take one habit from this page, make it the first item. A current LIM and a three-year-old one are different documents with the same name, and the difference is invisible unless you look at the date.
“Not mentioned in the LIM” is not “not there”
This is the single most expensive misreading of the document, and an entirely understandable one. A LIM looks comprehensive: produced by an authority, structured, paid for, with a statute behind it. Nothing about its appearance signals that its scope is bounded by one organisation’s filing cabinet.
But the bound is written into the legislation itself. The hazard duty and the special-features category are both expressed as what is known to the council; the drainage category is what is shown in its records. Nothing in the Act requires a council to go and find out — only to tell you what it already has.
Four different reasons a LIM can be silent
The issue does not exist at this property. This is the reading everyone assumes, and it is often correct — but it is one of four.
The issue exists and the council does not know. Settled.govt.nz gives the standard example: if the council has not been notified of a weathertightness issue, it will not show on the LIM.
The issue exists, the council knows, and it falls outside the categories. Interests registered on the title are the clearest case — easements and covenants are a title matter, not a LIM matter.
The work was never consented, so it generated no council record at all. Unconsented work is invisible precisely because it bypassed the process that creates the paper trail.
None of that makes a LIM unreliable. It makes it precise. It answers "what does this council hold about this land" accurately and with legal weight — and a careful reader takes the answer as exactly that, not as "what is true about this property".
The practical consequence is that a clean LIM raises the value of the other work rather than reducing it. A building inspector can see what was never reported, a solicitor can read the interests that were never a council matter, and the vendor can be asked directly — agents carry a disclosure duty of their own, set out with its citation below.
What a LIM is not
Four things get asked of a LIM that it was never built to do.
- It is not a complete hazard report. The hazard duty is real and was recently strengthened, but it reaches what the council knows — not every hazard that exists, and not how any hazard would behave at your building.
- It is not a building inspection. Nothing in a LIM observes the house. It records what the council was told and what it consented; it does not report on condition, moisture, workmanship or anything that would be found by someone walking through the property.
- It is not title or legal advice. Easements, covenants, encumbrances, cross-lease and unit title structures are not LIM content, and what any of the LIM’s contents mean for your position under an agreement is a question for your solicitor.
- It is not a guarantee that unmentioned issues do not exist. Its evidential weight runs to the correctness of the required information as at the date of issue. Silence is not a statement, and it carries no such weight.
Used for what it is — the council’s complete disclosure of its own records, with real evidential status on the day it was issued — a LIM is one of the most useful documents in the process. The trouble starts when it is asked to stand in for the professionals it was never meant to.
Where PropertyKete fits alongside a LIM
PropertyKete is designed to help with early property research, particularly before you make an offer or decide what needs deeper investigation. Against a LIM that has a precise meaning: we are what you read before ordering one, to work out how urgently to order it, what to look for, and which questions to have ready when it arrives.
What we can do that a LIM does not
- Answer in seconds rather than working days, at no cost, before you have decided the property is worth spending on.
- Draw on published regional hazard modelling directly, so you reach the LIM already knowing which hazard questions are live.
- Say explicitly when a check did not run, rather than leaving a silence to be interpreted.
The reverse list is longer, which is the honest shape of it. A LIM covers whole categories we hold nothing on — consent and notice history, contaminated land, drainage records, rates, and the council’s own hazard knowledge. The table below comes from the coverage registry the city pages use: checks PropertyKete does not run anywhere, several of which a LIM is the normal route to.
The two documents fail in opposite directions
A LIM is narrow and deep: bounded to one council’s records, authoritative within them, and silent in a way that is easy to misread as reassurance.
A screening report is broad and shallow: same checks everywhere it has data, an explicit statement where it has none, and no council record of what has actually happened at the address.
Neither is a version of the other, and using one to decide whether you need the other is the mistake worth avoiding. On any property you are serious about, order the LIM.
| Never checked by PropertyKete | On a LIM? | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| Contaminated land / HAIL | Usually on a LIM | The Act requires the likely presence of hazardous contaminants where the council knows of it, and councils hold land-use history for this purpose. A LIM is the usual route to it; we do not check it anywhere. |
| Easements, covenants and consent history | Sometimes on a LIM | Consents, notices and requisitions the council issued are required content. Easements and covenants registered against the title are not a LIM matter at all — they sit on the Record of Title, and are your solicitor’s review. |
| Liquefaction | Usually on a LIM | Liquefaction is a natural hazard, so where the council knows of it the hazard duty reaches it. We hold no liquefaction dataset and produce no liquefaction finding for any address, anywhere. |
| Tsunami evacuation and exposure zones | Sometimes on a LIM | Tsunami exposure can fall within the hazard duty where the council holds the information, though evacuation zone mapping is usually published separately by the council or the regional civil defence group. No PropertyKete report covers it. |
| Terrain, slope and wind exposure as a finding | Not a LIM category | Not a LIM category in its own right, though slope shows up indirectly where the council records erosion, subsidence or slippage. No report of ours carries such a finding. |
The “On a LIM?” column is our reading of the statutory categories, not a council’s undertaking. See what we do check, city by city.
Three real reports, read alongside what a LIM would add
A clean result is evidence, not a guarantee
Every check came back clear. Here is what that is worth.
A report where every check ran and found nothing. Reading that precisely is the same discipline a silent LIM demands, and the easiest one to let slip.
Material hazard findings, and how severity differs between them
Two water findings, and why they are not the same problem
Two hazard findings a LIM’s hazard section would give the council’s own account of. Useful for seeing what our version tells you, and what the council’s adds.
Material findings, screening indicators, and planning overlays
Not all evidence is the same weight
A planning overlay alongside hazard findings — a good illustration of the difference between what the plan already shows and what a LIM must add because it is not apparent from the plan.
Who can answer the questions a LIM raises
Each entry says why a LIM in particular sends you to that person, and what to actually ask when it does. These are routes, not walls. For what each profession covers more generally, the full due-diligence guide sets them out side by side.
The council
Why them: The council is the only source of a LIM, and the only place the documents behind it sit. Where the LIM names a consent, notice or hazard entry without the detail you need, the council holds the file that explains it.
What to ask: Order the LIM in writing with the council’s fee, and ask what the current turnaround and any faster option is. Where an entry raises a question, request the property file for the consent plans, inspection records and correspondence behind it.
A solicitor or conveyancer
Why them: Reading a LIM is partly a legal exercise. An unsigned-off consent, a notice on the land or a requisition changes what you should be agreeing to, and the interests that bind you as the new owner are on the title rather than in the LIM at all.
What to ask: Ask them to read the LIM and the Record of Title together, and to say what the offer should be conditional on — a satisfactory LIM, evidence that specific work was consented and signed off, or resolution of anything the council has recorded against the land.
A building inspector
Why them: A LIM records what the council was told. An inspector reports what is actually there, which is the only way to close the gap where work was never consented or a problem was never reported to anyone.
What to ask: Give the inspector the LIM beforehand and ask them to check the visible work against the consent history — anything built or altered the LIM does not account for, and any sign of a problem the council was never told about.
An engineer, including geotechnical
Why them: Where a LIM records erosion, subsidence, slippage or inundation, it has told you the council knows of it — not what it means for this building on this slope.
What to ask: Ask them to assess the recorded hazard against the actual site: what it means for the foundations, ground or retaining in question, whether investigation is warranted, and what remediation would involve.
The agent
Why them: The vendor may already hold a LIM, and its date matters as much as its contents. The agent is also the route to factual questions the LIM leaves unexplained, and carries a disclosure obligation of their own.
What to ask: Ask whether a LIM has been obtained and when it was issued, request a copy, and ask directly about anything unaccounted for — unconsented work, past notices, or issues the vendor knows about that the council may never have been told of.
What a PropertyKete report is not
- A LIM
- The whole subject of this page. We hold no council consent history, no notices or requisitions, no drainage records, no rates information and no contaminated-land history, and we have no equivalent of the council’s own knowledge of hazards at an address.
- A property file
- The underlying consent plans, inspection records and correspondence are council documents. Nothing we hold reproduces them, and nothing we publish should be read as evidence of what was consented.
- Legal due diligence
- Nothing on a report reviews your sale and purchase agreement, your title, or the interests registered against it. Those are your solicitor’s work, and they are binding on you.
- A building inspection
- We describe the land and its context. Nothing we hold observes the building, its condition, or the quality of work done to it — including work a LIM would not show either.
Checklist
- Ordered a LIM directly, or confirmed the date on the one the vendor supplied.
- Checked the issue date and treated an older LIM as a description of the council’s records on that day, not today.
- Read the hazard section as the council’s known and potential hazards, rather than as a complete hazard assessment of the site.
- Traced every visible alteration to a consent, and every consent to a code compliance certificate.
- Checked the drainage information for private drains and public lines under or near anything built.
- Checked for rates owing, and for any levy or targeted-rate obligation attaching to the land.
- Obtained the property file where the LIM raised a question the summary did not answer.
- Read the LIM alongside the Record of Title, not as a substitute for it.
- Asked the vendor, through the agent, about anything the LIM does not account for.
- Booked a building inspection rather than treating a clean LIM as evidence of condition.
- Checked separately for the hazards no PropertyKete report covers, since our silence on them is not a result either.
- Had the solicitor read the LIM before the offer became unconditional.
A LIM is the closest thing in a New Zealand property purchase to a straight answer from an authority. It is also a document with edges written into the statute that creates it, and the edges are where people get hurt.
Read it for what it is: everything one council holds about one piece of land, correct as at the day it was issued. Then treat every silence as an open question rather than a closed one, and ask the person whose job it is to answer that kind of question.
Sources
Every statutory statement on this page was checked against the current text of these sources on the date shown.
- Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987, ss 44A–44D — New Zealand Legislation. Checked 2026-09-05.
- Real Estate Agents Act (Professional Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2012, rules 10.7–10.8 — New Zealand Legislation. Checked 2026-09-05.
- What is a LIM report? — Settled.govt.nz (Real Estate Authority). Checked 2026-09-05.
- About property files and Land Information Memorandum (LIM) reports — Auckland Council. Checked 2026-09-05.
This guide is general information, not advice
The statutory statements above are summaries of the cited provisions, not legal advice, and legislation changes. This page is not legal, engineering, insurance, valuation or financial advice, and it does not take account of your circumstances or of any particular property. For what a LIM means for a specific purchase, use a solicitor.
The full due-diligence guide · Reading flood risk · Coverage by city · Data sources