LIM reports
A Land Information Memorandum is the council's file on the property: consents, rates, drainage, flooding, zoning, and any notices or requisitions. It is the one report that tells you what the council knows and the vendor might not. Order your own, read the attachments, and do not confirm the condition until we have.
What it is
The LIM is a report you order from the local council. It lists building consents and whether they were completed, rates owing, drainage and water information, hazard overlays like flooding or instability, zoning, and any notices the council has issued. Councils have ten working days to produce it, and in Auckland there is a fee.
Why it matters
The LIM is where you find the deck that never got a Code Compliance Certificate, the overland flow path through the back yard, or the requisition that says the garage conversion has to be removed. It also sets the baseline for what the vendor warrants in the agreement. If a problem is on the LIM, you cannot later claim you did not know.
How we handle it
We prefer you to order your own LIM rather than rely on one the agent provides, because a vendor's LIM may be out of date. We read the whole document, including the attachments, and summarise the issues in plain English. If the vendor agrees to fix something as a condition of settlement, we document it so it is enforceable.
Common traps
- Reading the vendor's LIM from six months ago instead of ordering a fresh one.
- Looking only at the summary page.
- Confusing a consent that was issued with a consent that was completed and signed off.
- In Christchurch, missing the hazard overlays that affect insurance.
Not sure how this applies to you?
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