AUGUST 2007 :: IN THIS ISSUE                 

Introduction

We trust you will find this publication a helpful addition to your resources.
For further information regarding LANDinfoNET Limited and our services, including full Land and PPSR search and registration, please
visit www.landinfo.net.nz or phone 0800 106 206

.:: AN EXTENSION OF YOUR OFFICE ::.

Comments from the General Manager, Janelle Weir

Welcome

Welcome to the August publication of LANDinfoNET’s newsletter. In this edition we have focussed on keeping you informed and up-to-date on upcoming LINZ changes that will affect most of us. Should you have any questions regarding any of the articles, please contact one of our registration team.

The market looks to be returning to the traditional cooling off period over the winter months. However, coupled with much higher interest rates volumes are significantly lower than the previous year where the market held quite steady. LANDinfoNET’S transaction statistics habitually indicate a significant increase come September, then full swing by October, yet it is doubtful we’ll see the same level of increase as previously years. On a more positive note, QV says even though activity is down with less listings and less buyers, the prices buyers are paying still appear to be holding up.

Continued Emailing of LANDinfoNET’s Newsletter

LANDinfoNET has been emailing you our newsletter since around 2000, the feedback and comments we receive are extremely positive and that you see value in reading it. In line with the Unsolicited Electronic Messages act that comes into force September 2007, should you not wish to receive any further newsletters, please click on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this newsletter.

Pre Registration Check Searches

We have noticed a much higher percentage in LINZ rejections for paper dealings forwarded to us for registration that either don’t have a current search attached, or do not want us to obtain one. EG; a client instructed us to lodge a bundle of dealings last month, many of which were rejected due to encumbrancee consents being required (something that would have been picked up from viewing the title). To alleviate a higher percentage of LINZ rejections, please keep this in mind when forwarding paper dealings to us for lodgement, as obtaining Pre Registration Check Searches can save you time and money in the long term.

Our consultants

We have 4 full time fully supported consultants permanently situated in both Auckland and Hamilton offices who have the expertise to assist you with your subdivisions, plan deposits and complicated consultancy matters should you wish to courier documents directly to them or meet with them personally. This being said, the electronic environment we operate in today allows all our consultants to assist you on any issue no matter where you are located geographically. Lastly, a sincere thank you for your continued support, we appreciate and value your business. In an effort to keep on improving we would be thankful for any feedback you may like to provide on our service, staff or website. All feedback can be forwarded to janellew@landinfo.net.nz

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Transfers & Mortgages from 1st August

From the 1st of August all Transfers and mortgages are being lodged as edealings but there are some exceptions. The same scenarios that applied to withdrawals and discharges from the 1st of May applies from the 1st of August for transfers and mortgages. If the transfer or mortgage was executed prior to the 1st of August and it was not possible or impractical to have the client now execute an A & I form then it is still possible to lodge these e-dealing capable documents as a paper transaction provided a letter of explanation accompanies the documents.

Withdrawals, discharges, transfers and mortgages can also still be lodged as a paper transaction if any other document (ie; easement certificates) in the dealing is not e-dealing capable. LINZ will accept these without further explanation.

We are still able to lodge withdrawals, discharges, caveats and mortgages (or in fact any document) as a paper lodgement from the 1st of August when we are lodging them on behalf of a finance company.

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LINZ Fee Changes Ahead

From the 1st of September the registration fees for LINZ will be updated, this will have an obvious effect upon registration lodged on or after this date. The most common fees affected are:

GPS Searching

LANDinfoNET are now able to provide GPS co-ordinate searching as part of our comprehensive searching solution.

We can provide title, ownership and address information from GPS co-ordinates or we can provide GPS co-ordinates if provided street addresses and legal descriptions. As an optional add on, we can also provide maps in PDF files of each property.

Over the past few months we have obtained this information for customers in bulk volumes within a very fast turnaround. We are also able to provide this sort of information on a smaller scale.

Should you like to know more about this new search service, please don’t hesitate to contact any one of our searching team on 0800 106 206.

LINZ Issues

DIGITAL PLANS – 1ST SEPTEMBER – by David Barker

From the 1st of September all plans are required to be lodged by the surveyor electronically. Important information that used to be shown on the plan face such as council certifications, schedules of easements, existing easements and covenant areas are now lodged as supporting documents with digital plans. When preparing documents that relate to a digital plan it is therefore not possible to rely on just a copy of that plan - copies of the supporting documents (as stated above) should also be obtained. These documents should in turn be forwarded onto us to enable a thorough check of the documents (if the plan has already been approved and able to be searched we will automatically obtain copies of these documents as part of our plan checking process). For more information please contact any one of our consultants on 0508 534 251..

EDEALING UPDATE – by David Barker

Twice in the last few weeks we have been asked to investigate incidents whereby a solicitor has signed and certified an e-dealing pursuant to Section 164A Land Transfer Act 1952 that they held the consent of a caveator when our principals who had registered the caveats were adamant that no consent has been given. Under e-dealings of course LINZ do not need to view the consent of a caveator and so all responsibility lies with the conveyancer acting for the party that is completing registration that they will not register unless they have the consent.

The subsequent sections to 164A - 164B and 164C - outlines the powers of the Registrar in relation to certifications that were fraudulent or materially incorrect however this does nothing to remedy the situation of the aggrieved party whose caveat failed to achieve what it was intended to do - which was prevent dealings with the land that was subject to the caveat. Presumably the interest of the party that managed to be registered, albeit in the presence of the caveat, has acquired indefeasible title (and were not aware of the fraud - Fraser v Walker).

If it becomes apparent that these certifications were given when, in fact, the conveyancer did not have the consent of the caveator it again highlights the fact that extreme care must be taken in certifying transfer and mortgages as edealings. As the Conveyancing Professional the only notice that you may have had of the presence of a caveat on the title is that you are simply ticking five boxes instead of four for a transfer and six instead of five for a mortgage. The person who has prepared should have prevalidated the dealing and if so Landonline would have given notice of the presence of a caveat. That person should have then passed that information onto you as the Conveyancing Professional responsible for certifying and signing. However if that person fails to do either of those things then it comes down to you the conveyancing professional ticking the box.

Under LANDinfoNET’s e-dealing service the dealing would have been prevalidated and if there were a caveat on the title being dealt with (and a copy of the caveators consent had not already been forwarded to us with the A & I form) the presence of any caveat would have been highlighted in VERY LARGE TEXT in our report to our principal.

As a post note - in the last couple of days we were instructed to lodge a paper withdrawal of caveat on behalf of a finance company (who incidentally are exempted from e-lodgement). We discovered that the caveat had already been withdrawn via e-dealing. The finance company was not aware that anyone from their company had provided authority to any conveyancer that would have enabled caveat to be withdrawn via e-dealing, we advise caution!

Contacting the LANDinfoNET Consultants

Our Land Transfer Consultants Roger Fielding, David Barker, Evan Yates and Elaine Hancock are always available for consultancy and technical advice issues on any matters. Please do not hesitate to contact them with any queries that you have.

Roger 0508 534 251 LANDinfoNET Limited rogerf@landinfo.net.nz
David 0508 534 251 LANDinfoNET Limited davidb@landinfo.net.nz
Evan 0508 534 251 LANDinfoNET Limited evany@landinfo.net.nz
Elaine 0508 534 251 LANDinfoNET Limited elaineh@landinfo.net.nz

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Average Time for New Titles to Issue and Plans to Approve

For your information above is the table setting out LINZ's guidelines and the average time we are experiencing currently for registration to be completed. These averages are fairly consistent throughout New Zealand.

At LANDinfoNET Limited we are continuing to look at systems to create efficiencies so you and your clients benefit. With this in mind, we publish these averages as a regular feature of our newsletter to assist you with providing information to your clients.

Please be aware we are unable to request LINZ to give priority or urgency ahead of other dealings until the expiration of LINZ's performance standard time frames (shown ABOVE).

Should you feel circumstances permit for you to request priority over other prior lodged new title documentation, please forward to us a formal letter addressed to the Processing Centre Manager of LINZ, outlining your reasons for special priority. We will submit this letter on your behalf and advise you of LINZ's intention

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PPSR Update

ENTERING EXISTING PPSR REGISTRATIONS INTO LANDinfoNET’S EXPIRY REMINDER SYSTEM – by Janelle Weir

From the beginning of 2007, any PPSR registrations LANDinfoNET complete on your behalf have an automatic reminder letter that our system generates to remind you of the upcoming expiry in five years time. This information is stored electronically on one of our 6 servers that are backed up daily.

Our first five years of registrations were completed manually, and therefore our reminder system has been a manual one that works extremely well.

We still maintain our manual system as not all registrations can be completed via our new interface. This means we can add existing registrations you may have completed yourself or your client has completed into our bring up system.

We have done just that for many of our customers who have said it gives them peace of mind knowing that LANDinfoNET will remind them in plenty of time of the upcoming expiry, and if instructed to do so, will also renew the registration prior to expiry.

Should you like to know more about the service, please contact Janelle Weir on 0800 106 206.

SEARCHING BY SECURED PARTY GROUPS

Unfortunately it is not possible to search by secured party group name on the Personal Properties & Securities Register. However, we are able to search registered financing statements if supplied the secured party group ID and Password. We can assist you in obtaining Secured Party Group ID’s and Passwords should you have mislaid them providing you have at least one financing statement number or at least one debtor name.

The five types of searches possible in the PPSR are:

• Debtor Person
• Debtor Organisation
• Financing Statement Registration Number
• Motor Vehicle Registration Number
• Aircraft Serial Number

Should you need any assistance with your PPSR searching visit www.landinfo.net.nz or give any of our PPSR specialists a call.

Janelle Weir General Manager/PPSR Consultant
janellew@landinfo.net.nz
Free Phone: 0800 106 206

Karissa Ansley Searching and Registration
karissaa@landinfo.net.nz
Free phone: 0508 534 251

Vesna Sudzum PPSR Searching and Registration, HR Manager
vesnas@landinfo.net.nz
Free Phone: 0800 106 206

Real Estate Statistics

For July 2007 there were 6,660 sales for the month which is down compared to this time last year 7,761 however it was interesting to see the Median Sale Price at $345,000.00 compared to $312,000.00 last year. June was a strong month for sales which were at 7,474 with the Median Sale Price at $347,500.00. There are clear signs that there is still a shortage of listings out there to meet demand, but Interest rates and our bad weather will be playing a big factor in this as many people wait for Spring to sell there homes.

QV records the National Median Sale price for July (calculated over the 3 months ending July 2007) at $381,298 and a growth in national property values of 12.7% over the past year.

To generate specific REINZ reports click here.

A Big Thank You

Once again thank you for your continued support, we hope that you find this newsletter and the information it contains useful. We wish you all continued success for the rest of 2007.

If you have any questions regarding this newsletter, please contact Wayne Martin, our Key Accounts Manager, on 0800 106 206 or waynem@landinfo.net.nz

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Feel free to phone our call free number 0800 106 206 and ask
for Wayne Martin for further information.