Legal description

Provide details of ownership of the property and legal description of the land, including regarding contaminants in the soil. The system defaults your selections from your building consent to the form.

Next: Buildings

Proof of ownership questions indicate the type of evidence you will attach to your application to prove the ownership of the property. You must be able to show ALL the registered owners of the property.

When uploading proof of ownership files, you must ensure the files are no more than 3 months old. Your BCA is likely to issue an RFI asking for more recent proof of ownership.

If you load a file older than 3 months, the system displays a dialog listing the files that are too old, warning you of the likelihood of an RFI and asking you to either cancel or select to keep the file.

What type of proof of ownership are you providing?

  • Record of title is the most common evidence of ownership. A record of title identifies the legal owners of a property, as well as the property's legal description and any rights and restrictions registered on the title (such as mortgage, easement or covenant).

    You can request a copy of the records of title for properties affected by your project from Toitū Te Whenua Land Information NZ.

  • Other displays a list of other accepted forms of proof of ownership: Lease agreement, Sale and purchase agreement or Other document showing full name of legal owner.

    Please check with your BCA or council which other types of proof of ownership they accept.

Do you want your Building Consent Authority or Council to supply a copy of the Record of Title? is available when your BCA or council offers a service to supply the code of the record of title for you. There may be a fee for this service.

Legal description of land where building is located questions identify the land affected by the building work. Your building work may involve one or more parcels of land, and you must provide the details of all parcels.

Lot numbers and Deposited plan (DP or DPS) numbers are commonly used legal identifiers for a parcel of land.

Under the land transfer system, each parcel of land is described as a Lot on a Deposited Plan, for example Lot 1234 DP 4567. You can find legal descriptions on rating valuation notices or rates demands. You can also search maps on some local council websites.

Do not have Lot or DP numbers? Select this option when you need to provide another legal description instead of Lot / DP numbers. When this option is selected, Lot / DP numbers are set to read-only and Other legal description is made mandatory.

Valuation roll numbers identify parcels of land on which valuations are based for calculating rates. The valuation roll is maintained by territorial authorities for each district and is available online for some authorities. Valuation roll numbers are available on rating valuation notices or rates demands.

Other legal description provides for any other identifying descriptions of the land when you do not have the more commonly used identification information or to clarify scope of the information provided, for example where the affected property sits on multiple parcels or is to be subdivided.