Pānui - May 2026

Kia ora koutou

Welcome to Pānui for May 2026.

As you may have seen, the Government has appointed a new Minister for Land Information, Hon. Mike Butterick. Minister Butterick is also Associate Minister of Agriculture and former member of the Primary Production Select Committee. The Overseas Investment team is looking forward to supporting Minister Butterick in his new role.

You can read more about the Minister on the Parliament website:
Mike Butterick | beehive.govt.nz

A steady stream of applications to buy or build houses worth more than $5 million have been received from qualifying investor visa holders wanting to buy property in New Zealand. There has been regular interest in how many applications are being received, where the investors are coming from and what parts of the country they are buying in.

We have now moved to publishing this information on our website as part of our regular data publication. We plan to update the figures weekly initially but will review the frequency as the pathway becomes more established.

You can see the information at:
Overseas investment information dashboards

Ngā mihi

Dan White
Head of Regulatory Practice and Delivery
Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand

Penalties for serious breaches of the Overseas Investment Act

Illegally buying sensitive land and attempting to evade the Overseas Investment Act has resulted in combined penalties of $440,000 for two businessmen.

The case involved an Australian citizen buying sensitive land with cryptocurrency using a New Zealand-based company fronted by a New Zealander to conceal their ownership. This breached the Overseas Investment Act’s strict ‘associate’ rules.

There is no tolerance for attempting to evade the law and, as this case demonstrates, LINZ will take firm enforcement action if offending of this nature is detected.

You can read more about this case and read the High Court’s judgment in our new section:
Penalties for serious breaches of the Overseas Investment Act

Ngā Hui Whakamārama 

Our next Ngā Hui Whakamārama online seminar will be held on 24 June 2026.

These sessions are technical in nature and designed specifically for lawyers who regularly advise overseas investors.

You will receive an invitation to the hui if you’ve attended a previous one.

Dashboards updated

The latest data on approved overseas investment consents is now available on our interactive dashboards.

The visual dashboards present data current up to 31 March 2026, providing a big-picture view of the decision summaries we publicly release each month. The dashboards can be filtered according to such things as decision pathways and regions and are presented in both graph and map form.

Overseas investment information dashboards

Decision summaries for April

Decision summaries are published the month after a decision is made. The latest decision summaries are listed here, including standing consent notifications.

Benefit to New Zealand

202500764 - Sjerp William Ysselstein as trustee for The Marlborough Family Estate Trust
202600104 - Ryan Thomas Bullock
202500813 - Harmony Energy Holdings (TSF) Limited
202600004 - LWC 2025 LP
202600140 - Kauri Forestry LP
202500802 - Tasman Tourism New Zealand Limited

Significant business assets only

202600006 - Iridium SP Bidco Pty Ltd and ITG Australia TS Sub Pty Ltd (trustee for Iridium SP Bid Trust)
202600100 - Precinct Pacific Investment Limited Partnership

Primary consent pathway – Land decision

202600241 - CDL Land New Zealand Limited

Special forestry

202600149 - Ingka Investments Forest Assets NZ Ltd and Ingka Investments Management NZ Ltd
202600076 - Sustainable Forestry New Zealand Limited
202600027 - Salm-Salm Timber Luxembourg S.à.r.l.
202600062 - SCOOF Taonga Investments Limited
202500848 - Kauri Forestry LP
202600137 - Juken New Zealand Limited

Primary consent pathway - Production forestry

202600239 - Kauri Forestry LP

Exemption - Large apartment development

202600105 - Kingsman Development No. 2 Limited

See Register: Exemption certificates for large residential developments

Exemption - Farm land advertising

202500478 - Muir Road Partnership
202500423 - Jasminfra I
202600148 - NZCE Investments Limited

See Register: Exemptions from farm land advertising requirements