Electronic lodgement is mandatory
Electronic lodgement of land title instruments has been fully mandatory for practitioners since 23 February 2009.
Practitioner vs registration agent
- A practitioner is a solicitor or conveyancing practitioner as defined in the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006; or a licensed land broker.
- A registration agent is not a practitioner, but dealings lodged by a registration agent on behalf of a practitioner must be lodged electronically.
The Registrar-General of Land (RGL) may also specify that any other particular class of persons can certify electronic instruments (which may be limited to certification of a specific class of instruments only). See Allocation of Certification Rights Standard 2018 for more information.
Exceptions to electronic lodgement
There are some exceptions to mandatory electronic lodgement:
- Dealings lodged by customers who are not practitioners are not required to be lodged electronically. This means that banks, government departments, accredited suppliers and private individuals doing their own conveyancing are all exceptions to mandatory electronic lodgement.
- Most instrument types can be lodged electronically. Exceptions include:
- instruments specified in the Land Transfer Regulations 2018 as not capable of electronic registration (e.g. memorandum or a power of attorney).
- instrument types that cannot be converted into an electronic format, e.g. a Forestry Agreement (AG) with an aerial photo attached, which means the file size is too large to upload
- some instrument types that are no longer in use because they have been superseded
A full list of instrument types that can be lodged electronically is available on this website.
- Any dealing that includes an instrument that cannot be lodged electronically will be accepted as a manual dealing, even if other instruments in the dealing can be lodged electronically.
Dispensations can be requested
- Section 32 of the Land Transfer Act 2017 gives the RGL a discretionary power of dispensation to allow a paper instrument to be lodged instead of lodging electronically.
- Practitioners wishing to obtain a dispensation must make a written application outlining the circumstances and applying for a dispensation under section 32 of the Land Transfer Act 2017. The application should be in the form of a letter, which should accompany the dealing when it is lodged manually.
- An application for dispensation is required to be made when a dealing:
- is a manual dealing
- is lodged by a practitioner, and
- includes only instrument types that can be lodged electronically.
Manual dealing lodged without a dispensation request
- LINZ processing staff will requisition the dealing. The wording of the requisition will be:
- Instrument incomplete – As this instrument is able to be lodged as an e-dealing a dispensation request in the form of a letter must be submitted (Section 32(3) Land Transfer Act 2017).
- There are two options in this instance:
- make an application for dispensation, or
- withdraw the manual dealing from registration and lodge a new dealing electronically.