Buying a section in New Zealand

1. Due diligence essentials: LIM, title, covenants and geotech

Due diligence is the checking you do before you're locked in. On a section it usually comes down to four documents — and most of them cost little or nothing compared to the price of the land.

The LIM report

A Land Information Memorandum (LIM) is issued by the local council and pulls together what the council knows about the property: zoning, rates, building and resource consents, drainage and water connections, and known hazards such as flooding, erosion or contaminated land. Any buyer can order one from the council for a fee, with standard and urgent turnaround options. Read it with your lawyer — what matters is often what's not there as much as what is.

The record of title

The record of title (what most people still call the "CT" or certificate of title) confirms who owns the land, its legal description, and every interest registered against it — mortgages, easements, covenants and consent notices. Your lawyer can pull a current copy from Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) in minutes. On new subdivisions, check whether the title for your lot has actually issued yet; buying "off the plan" means it hasn't.

Covenants

Most new developments carry land covenants — private rules registered on the title that can control house size, materials, height, fencing, and even whether you can park a caravan or run a business from home. They exist to protect the look and value of the neighbourhood, and they bind you once you own the land. Get the full covenant document and read it before you offer, not after.

Geotechnical information

A geotech report tells you what the ground is like to build on — bearing capacity, fill, groundwater and slope stability. On flat, well-established subdivisions the developer may already hold a subdivision-wide report you can rely on; on sloping or rural sites you may need your own. In Canterbury, land also carries a Technical Category (TC1–TC3) rating that reflects expected liquefaction performance and affects foundation design and cost.

Ready to start looking? Browse sections for sale or register and we'll send you matching sections as they're released.

2. Titles, covenants and easements explained

Three lines on the title do most of the heavy lifting in a land purchase: what the title type is, what covenants sit on it, and what easements cross it.

Title types

Most sections sold on Section Shop are freehold (fee simple) — the strongest and simplest form of ownership, where you own the land outright. You may also come across unit titles (common in townhouse and apartment developments, with a body corporate) and cross-leases (an older shared-ownership form, mostly on existing properties). For a new-build section, freehold is the norm — if it's anything else, ask why.

When the title doesn't exist yet

New subdivisions are often sold before LINZ has issued individual titles. That's normal, but it means settlement is usually tied to title issue, and your agreement should say what happens if titles are delayed — see the sunset clause discussion in the purchase process guide.

Covenants in practice

Developer covenants commonly set minimum floor areas, approved cladding palettes, rules about secondary dwellings, and timeframes to start and finish building. Some require the developer's design approval before you can build. None of this is necessarily bad — covenants protect your neighbours from building something that drags your value down too — but you need to know your plans fit inside them. A covenant you breach can be enforced by neighbours or the developer, and fixing a breach is expensive.

Easements

An easement gives someone else a legal right over part of your land — most often for drainage, water, power or shared driveways (rights of way). Easements are shown on the title and usually on the survey plan. The practical questions: where exactly does it run, and does it limit where you can build? Building over a council drainage easement, for example, is generally not allowed.

Every development on Section Shop links its title and covenant documents from the listing. See what's available.

3. Services & buildability: water, wastewater, power, contour and flood zones

Two sections with the same price and the same view can differ by tens of thousands of dollars in what it costs to actually build on them. The difference is usually services and ground conditions.

Water, wastewater and stormwater

In town, confirm the lot has connections — or a right to connect — to reticulated water and wastewater, and ask whether connection or infrastructure growth charges still apply. In rural or lifestyle areas, check instead for rainwater tank requirements, septic or aerated wastewater systems, and where stormwater soaks away to. On-site systems need suitable ground, and that suitability should show up in the geotech or subdivision reports.

Power and fibre

New subdivisions usually duct power and fibre to each boundary — confirm it's to your boundary, not just the street. Rural sections may need a new connection, and long driveways make that expensive.

Contour and orientation

Contour drives cost. Flat sites are the cheapest to build on; sloping sites can need retaining walls, piles or split-level designs, but often buy you the view and the sun. Check the survey plan for spot levels, and stand on the site at the time of day you'd actually live there. In New Zealand, north-facing living is worth real money in winter.

Flood zones and other hazards

Councils map floodplains, overland flow paths and coastal hazard areas, and those maps feed into the LIM and the district plan. A lot inside a mapped flood zone isn't automatically a no — but it can mean raised floor levels, extra engineering, higher insurance, or difficulty getting insurance at all. Check the council maps and the LIM, and ask the insurer before you offer, not after.

Every listing on Section Shop shows what we know about services and contour. Register to get new sections matched to what you're after.

4. Money: deposits, staged payments and finance for land

Funding bare land works differently from funding a house, and it pays to line up your bank before you fall in love with a section.

The deposit

Sale and purchase agreements on sections typically call for a deposit — often around 10% of the price, though it's negotiable — paid when the agreement goes unconditional or as the agreement specifies. Deposits should be paid to the vendor's lawyer or the licensed agent's trust account, where they're held until settlement, not directly to the seller.

Staged payments on new subdivisions

Buying off the plan usually means: deposit now, balance on settlement — which is typically triggered by the issue of the new title (sometimes with a short period after titles issue). That gap between signing and settlement can run from months to over a year, so check your finance approval covers the actual settlement window; pre-approvals expire.

Lending on bare land

Banks treat bare land as riskier than a house: it's harder to sell quickly and produces no income. In practice that often means a larger required deposit than for an existing home, and tighter criteria if you have no immediate plan to build. Lenders are noticeably more comfortable when the land purchase is paired with a build — many offer construction loans that fund the section first and then progress payments to the builder. If you're a first-home buyer, you can generally withdraw KiwiSaver to buy land to build your first home on, and may qualify for a First Home Loan on a new build — check current criteria with your lender or Kāinga Ora, as the rules change.

Budget beyond the price

Allow for legal fees, the LIM and any reports, loan establishment costs, and the time value of a deposit sitting in a trust account while you wait for titles. On the build side, site works — retaining, driveways, connections — are the classic budget blow-out, and they're dictated by exactly the buildability factors in the previous guide.

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5. Superlots & buying for development

A superlot is a larger parcel within a new subdivision, sold with the intention that the buyer develops it further — terraced housing, duplexes, apartments or a further subdivision. They're how most builders and developers actually buy land at scale.

What you're really buying

The value of a superlot sits in what the zoning and the title allow. In Auckland, for example, a lot zoned Terraced Housing and Apartment Buildings under the Unitary Plan is a very different proposition from the same-sized lot zoned Single House. Check the zone, the overlays, and any consent notices on the title that require (or restrict) certain densities or designs. Some superlots are sold with resource consent already in place for a specific scheme — that can be worth a premium because it removes a year of process and risk.

The numbers that matter

Beyond the headline price per square metre: development contributions and infrastructure growth charges (who pays them, and are they already covered in the head subdivision?), the capacity of the services to the boundary, any requirement to build within a timeframe, and staging obligations to the developer. Price per consented or consented-able unit is the honest way to compare two superlots.

Tax and structure

Land bought with an intention to develop or resell is generally taxed on the gain, GST treatment depends on the parties' registration status, and the bright-line and associated-person rules can bite the unwary. This is territory for your accountant and lawyer before you sign — the right structure is much easier to set up before the purchase than after.

Buying well

The best superlot deals rarely reach the open market; they go to buyers the developer already knows. Registering as a builder/developer buyer, watching the regions you work in, and moving quickly when a stage drops is the practical edge.

Builders and developers: register as a developer buyer and we'll flag superlots and bulk opportunities as they're listed — including early access to new stage drops.

6. The purchase process: offer, conditions, settlement — and how Section Shop helps

Here's the shape of a typical section purchase in New Zealand, end to end.

Making the offer

Offers are made on a sale and purchase agreement, almost always on the standard ADLS/REINZ form. You can submit your offer directly through Section Shop — it goes to the developer or their licensed salesperson, and they'll respond with an acceptance, a counter-offer, or a decline. Until both parties have signed, either side can walk away.

Conditions

Common conditions on land purchases include: finance (your lending confirmed), LIM (you approve the LIM report), solicitor's approval of the agreement and title, due diligence (a general catch-all period for reports, geotech, insurance and your own investigations), and sometimes the sale of your own property. Each condition has a deadline; when all are satisfied the agreement goes unconditional and both parties are committed. Only offer unconditional if your checks are genuinely done.

Sunset clauses

Off-the-plan section agreements usually include a sunset clause: if titles haven't issued by a long-stop date, either party can cancel and the deposit is refunded. It protects you from being tied up forever — read the clause to see who can invoke it and when.

Settlement

Settlement is when you pay the balance and the title transfers to you — handled lawyer to lawyer, usually within a set number of working days after titles issue. From there, you're a landowner: rates, covenant obligations and the fun part — designing what goes on it — are yours.

How Section Shop helps

Section Shop is the marketplace layer around this process: one registration that matches you to sections nationwide, availability maps so you can see exactly which lots are still for sale, watch alerts when a lot's status or price changes, and an offer flow that puts your offer in front of the right person immediately. Because Section Shop is operated under James Law Realty Limited, licensed under the Real Estate Agents Act 2008, your offer is handled within the same licensed framework as any agency transaction.

Found a section you like? Browse the maps and make an offer, or register and let the right section find you.