Most buyers run the right checks in the wrong order: the slow ones started too late, and the expensive ones spent on properties the cheap checks would have killed. The list below is the one we work from every day. The order matters more than the list.
An $8 title search can kill a deal before you spend $375 on a LIM. A LIM can kill it before you spend hundreds on a building inspection. And because the council's clock on a LIM is up to ten working days, it gets ordered on day one, not when you remember it. Run cheap checks to decide whether the expensive ones are worth buying, and start the slow ones before everything else.
Everything else sits on top of the title. Order it from Toitū Te Whenua (LINZ) for $8 and read it before you get emotionally committed: who owns it, the estate type (freehold, leasehold, cross-lease, unit title), the land area and legal description, and every registered easement, covenant and mortgage. For another $8 the historic title shows how those interests accumulated.
What you are looking for: rights of way across the land, covenants that restrict what you can build, easements that carry a neighbour's water or power across the section, and a cross-lease flats plan where the drawn footprint no longer matches the house that is standing.
Source: LINZ land record order fees — $8 per record of title, all formats · read 4 Aug 2026
Before paying anyone, the public record will answer more questions than most buyers ever ask it:
Source: your district and regional council GIS portals · ECan Listed Land Use Register (Canterbury) · read 4 Aug 2026
The Land Information Memorandum is the council's own file on the property: consents and permits it knows about, hazard information it holds, rates, drainage, and notices attached to the land. The law gives a council up to ten working days to issue one, and that clock is why this step is here and not later: if your offer is conditional, the LIM has to land inside your condition period, so it gets ordered the day the clock starts. Fees are set by each council; Auckland currently charges $375, or $506 urgent.
Source: LGOIMA 1987, s 44A — ten-working-day limit · Auckland Council LIM fees · read 4 Aug 2026
The property file is the paper trail: building consents, plans, and code compliance certificates. The exercise is reconciliation: walk the property against the file. The second storey, the sleepout, the plumbed-in pool house, the pool fence: each either has its consent and its CCC, or it is your problem the day you settle.
Source: your district council's property file service; fees and formats vary by council · read 4 Aug 2026
The standard pre-purchase inspection is a visual inspection to NZS 4306:2005. Use an inspector who works to that standard, carries current indemnity insurance, and belongs to a recognised body. Government guidance points to Building Officials Institute of New Zealand or NZ Institute of Building Inspectors membership. Then match the scope to the era: official guidance flags plaster-style monolithic cladding from the 1980s to the mid-2000s, and on a plastered home of that era a standard visual report is not sufficient. Commission a weathertightness-specific inspection with moisture readings.
Source: Consumer Protection — building reports and red flags · read 4 Aug 2026. We do not quote an inspection price because no reliable national range can be sourced; obtain two quotes.
Your insurer reads the same flood maps you found at step 02, and prices them. Natural hazards cover (NHCover) comes automatically with a fire-inclusive home policy, but it is capped: currently $300,000 plus GST for the building under the Natural Hazards Insurance Act 2023. Everything above the cap is your private insurer's decision, which makes insurability and premium a live pricing question on flood-mapped or hazard-overlay land, not an after-settlement errand. Get a real quote on the actual address before your conditions expire.
Source: Natural Hazards Commission — about NHCover — $300,000 + GST building cap, NHI Act 2023 · read 4 Aug 2026
On a unit title, the seller must give you a pre-contract disclosure statement, and the body corporate's records are part of your due diligence: minutes, the long-term maintenance plan and its fund, levies, and any remediation talk. Read the minutes for the building's future, not its past. On a cross-lease, go back to step 01: the flats plan is the property, and an extension that is not on the plan is a defect in the title itself.
Source: Unit Titles Act 2010 disclosure regime; your lawyer confirms the specific documents for the title type · read 4 Aug 2026
The standard TLANZ/REINZ Agreement for Sale and Purchase (currently in its eleventh edition) is a lawyer's document, and conditions are drafting, not box-ticking: finance, LIM, building report, and a due-diligence clause where warranted, each with dates the slow checks above can actually meet. That is the quiet payoff of running this list in order: your condition periods are set by someone who knows the LIM takes ten working days.
And the auction rule: bidding is unconditional. Every check on this page happens before auction day or it does not happen, which is why auction campaigns are where ordered due diligence earns its keep.
Source: TLANZ/REINZ Agreement, eleventh edition · read 4 Aug 2026
A Current Analytics report does steps 01 and 02 the way they should be done — the title read in full, every layer control-tested, the valuation history, comparable sales each against their own rating value — and then tells you which of the paid checks matter most on this property, in what order, and what each one needs to answer. It does not replace the LIM, the building report or your lawyer. It makes sure the money you spend on them is spent on the right property, with the right questions.