Taranaki resident warns of relying too much on LIM reports
A New Plymouth property owner is urging new home buyers not to rely on Land Information Memorandum (LIM) reports after wrong information got him into a planning wrangle with the district council.
Geoff Leadley said he was misled by an LIM report for a rural property he bought in Brixton, north of New Plymouth, in 2018, which omitted details of a wahi taonga (an area significant to Māori).
LIM reports are legally binding documents containing everything known by the relevent 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 60m-long "acoustic" wall along the boundary with State Highway 3 to block traffic noise 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 wahi taonga and a land surveyor told him the nearest one was 200m-300m away.
Checks later confirmed there there was no wahi taonga site on the property.
While a wahi 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 wahi taonga sites involved," he said.
"We acted on information which was negligently provided by the council.
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