A quick eligibility check to run before you touch the loan application — plus the partner exemption most advisers miss.
You are often the first point of contact for a buyer, weighing two questions: can this client get a loan, and can they actually buy residential property in New Zealand? You are the expert on the first. It isn’t your job to assess eligibility under the Overseas Investment Office rules, but a quick check saves you building a loan application for a purchase that can’t happen yet.
Any client who is a New Zealand citizen automatically qualifies. For new residents, waiting on a lawyer to confirm eligibility takes time, and at the start of a purchase everything feels urgent. A five-minute DIY test tells you whether to keep going or send it to us first. HouseMe Legal doesn’t charge for this eligibility check.
Work through three steps, in order — the client must satisfy all three:
Then the part worth knowing cold: under Regulation 45, if one partner qualifies — a citizen, or someone who passes the three steps — both can buy together, provided they are genuinely de facto partners (not flatmates or co-investors). And eligibility is tested when they sign, not on settlement day.
