How New Zealand actually works, checking a house
Checking a house, the record's version of due diligence
Before the builder's report and the lawyer, there's the public record, what the council, the hazard maps and the street's own history say about the ground you're buying. This is the five-minute workflow the site exists for, and the honest list of what it can't tell you.
Start with the address
Search the address on /address (or put it in the top search). The page that comes back is the council register's view cross-linked to everything else the site holds:
- The capital value and valuation date, the input to the rates bill, and a sanity-check against the asking price. It's a mass-appraisal figure, a lead not a valuation.
- The zone, which chapter of the District Plan governs the land. Indicative, labelled so; the ePlan is the authority.
- The hazard layers, flood and hazard flags drawn from the council's published maps. The presence of a flag is a reason to read the flooding page, not a verdict.
Then the street and the suburb
A house is a node in a street's history. The address page links the street record, every public report made on that road, sorted by kind, and the suburb page, which carries the same record at suburb scale plus schools, parks and the stream of consents and licences that flow through it. A street that reports a leaking toby every month and a street that reports nothing are different places; the record won't say which is better, but it will show you both.
The corner, if it matters
For a house on or near an intersection, the crash record names the city's hurting corners and the suburb pages carry their local list. It matters for the corner house, the school route, and the honest question of what "quiet street" means. The crash-record page explains what the data counts, reported crashes only, before you read it.
What's being decided around it
The consents feed shows what's permitted near the land, the neighbour's earthworks, the subdivision up the road, the discharge into the drain behind the fence. None of it is verdict; all of it is the city's paperwork arriving before the machines do. The consents page explains the two-council split behind the entries.
What stood there before
The last check is the site's founding question. /before drops the pin on the historical record, the documents, the papers, the heritage entries, and the heritage layer shows what's listed or formerly standing nearby. A red-zone street reads different from a stable one; the record remembers which is which.
It can't see inside the building, weathertightness, foundations, the quality of a quake repair. It can't replace the LIM, the council's certified property file, which is the document that actually binds in a sale — CCC, LIMs. And it can't tell you what to do, the record describes; the decision is yours, and a buyer's solicitor, valuer and builder each see a different layer of it. Read this site as the honest first hour, not the last word.
The post-quake question is the one the record answers best: "what happened to this land" is a real, documented thing here, red-zone streets, remediated TC3 sections, repaired streets and the ones still arguing. The rebuild page is the context; the address page is the address.
Last reviewed 23 September 2026, sources: this site's address, street, suburb, consent and crash records; CCC LIM and property information pages; the council hazard layers. Corrections: /corrections.
Questions, answered briefly
Search the address: the address page returns the capital value and valuation date, the District Plan zone the land sits in, and the flood and hazard flags drawn from the council's published maps, then links the street's report history and the suburb page. Treat it as the honest first hour, not a replacement for the LIM, the builder's report or the lawyer.
Yes, the LIM is the council's certified property file, the document that actually binds in a sale, and the public record can't replace it. It also can't see inside the building: weathertightness, foundations and the quality of a quake repair stay invisible to it.
Yes, the street record lists every public report made on that road sorted by kind, and the suburb page carries the same record at suburb scale plus schools, parks and the stream of consents and licences. A street that reports a leaking toby every month and a street that reports nothing are different places; the record won't say which is better, but it will show you both.
/before drops the pin on the historical record, the documents, the papers and the heritage entries, and shows what's listed or formerly standing nearby. In Christchurch that is the post-quake question the record answers best: a red-zone street reads different from a stable one.