Practitioners' certification requirements

All land transactions must be properly authorised by or on behalf of the landowner and other relevant parties. This is an essential safeguard to ensure that only bona fide (legitimate) transactions are lodged for registration.

Establishing the identity of your client is an essential safeguard against identity and property fraud in conveyancing transactions. The certifying practitioner is ultimately responsible for ensuring reasonable steps have been taken to verify the identity of the client.

In some circumstances, the consent of another party (such as a prior mortgagee or caveator) may be required to enable the registration of a subsequent transaction.

The statutory and evidentiary requirements for electronic instruments vary from instrument to instrument.

When a practitioner certifies and signs an electronic instrument for registration via Landonline, they are responsible for the certifications they give for the purposes of section 27 of the Land Transfer Act 2017.

All practitioners who certify electronic instruments will, from time to time, be reviewed under section 30 of the Land Transfer Act 2017 as part of the Registrar-General of Land’s routine monitoring programme.

We've worked with the New Zealand Law Society and NZ Society of Conveyancers to develop a self-assessment questionnaire to help law firms assess the land registration systems and procedures they have in place.