Property buyer ‘misled’ by inaccurate Lim report
A New Plymouth property owner is urging home buyers not to rely on land information memorandum reports after wrong information got him into a planning wrangle with the district council.
Geoff Leadley said he was misled by a Lim report for a rural property he bought in Brixton, north of New Plymouth, in 2018, which omitted details of a wa¯ hi taonga (an area significant to Ma¯ ori).
Lim reports are legally binding documents containing everything known by the relevant council about a property and any issues that might affect it.
When Leadley applied to the New Plymouth District Council (NPDC) for resource consent to build a 60-metre-long ‘‘acoustic’’ wall along the boundary with State Highway 3 to block traffic noise, he was surprised to hear he needed to consult a third party.
He said a duty planner told him there was a sensitive site on the 0.5 hectare property and local iwi needed to be consulted.
Leadley said the Lim report did not highlight any wa¯ hi taonga and a land surveyor told him the nearest one was 200m-300m away.
Checks later confirmed there there was no wa¯ hi taonga site on the property.
While a wa¯ hi taonga did feature on the current district plan, NPDC said it was incorrectly mapped and the Lim should have reflected this.
Leadley said his lawyer and valuer had been misled by the inaccurate information. He said this pointed to Lim reports being unreliable. ‘‘Incorrect Lim reports can have a huge effect, at great expense to property buyers and developers, especially if there are wa¯ hi taonga sites involved,’’ he said. ‘‘We acted on information which was negligently provided by the council.’’
NPDC customer and regulatory manager Katrina Brunton later wrote to Leadley to confirm the duty planner had given incorrect information.
Brunton said the report was ‘‘technically correct’’.
‘‘The team preparing the Lim were advised by the environmental planner the wa¯ hi taonga was incorrectly located on the district plan and, as it was going to be corrected in the proposed district plan, advised not to include it.
‘‘This was extremely unusual and would not normally occur,’’ Brunton said.
The proposed district plan would correct the error.
The Lim report also did not mention that a restrictor valve for metered water supply to the house had been removed.
As a result the property had been receiving direct water supply which the owner was not entitled to.
NPDC knew the valve had been removed before Leadley
‘‘That has now been updated in the proposed district plan.’’ NPDC customer and regulatory manager Katrina Brunton
bought the property but had not included it on the report due to a human error.
The council had offered to reimburse Leadley’s legal fees but he had declined.
Leadley also asked to meet with NPDC chief executive Craig Stevenson but was told the ‘‘matter was closed’’.
In a written statement, Brunton said the issue came about from a difference between the current district plan and the new proposed district plan.
‘‘It was incorrect in the current plan but that has now been updated in the proposed district plan.’’
Brunton said the Lim report did not provide information to state the restrictor had been removed without authorisation from NPDC but was accurate in regard to the permitted water connection.
Brunton said the complaint from Leadley was the only one NPDC had received on Lim reports in the past five years.