Territorial Authorities and Notice of Change

All changes of ownership of a property are required to be registered through a land title transaction in Landonline.

Once changes are made in Landonline, a conveyancing professional generates a Notice of Change (NoC) that's sent to the relevant city council.

NoCs are usually generated when an instrument, or written legal document, is registered against a Record of Title for a property. Examples of change of ownership instruments are:

• transfer a property from the current owners to new owners
• transmission - when an estate is acquired by law, for example, when the owner dies
• change or correction of name on a Record of Title.

NoCs are automatically sent to Territorial Authorities (TAs). This NoC service is used by all 67 Territorial Authorities in New Zealand.

How the NoC service works

When someone changes ownership of a title, their conveyancing professional enters the additional rating valuation information in the Record of Title in Landonline. Then the conveyancing professional can select the Notice of Change option to inform the relevant local council of the change of ownership.

Selecting the Notice of Change option pre-populates a NoC form which includes these fields:

• Address of the property
• Council name
• Existing owners
• New owners
• Record of title details
• Solicitors acting
• Valuation reference.

Some of this information is drawn from district valuation rolls (DVR), so accuracy of the information is important.

Conveyancing professionals then confirm the transaction type, for example, a sale. 

When the NoC form is completed, the conveyancing professional selects the Ready to Send button. This prepares the NoC to link to the title instrument waiting for registration. When the title instrument is registered the NoC is sent overnight to the relevant local council.

City councils use the NoC to update their rating information databases. Updating makes sure the new owner receives all future rating notices for the property. Be aware that sometimes there may be additional notes added from the conveyancing professional to support the NoC or update data inconsistencies.

The conveyancing professional also receives confirmation, including a copy of the NoC.

Receiving Notice of Change files

When a conveyancing professional registers an instrument against a Record of Title a NoC is generated in Landonline.

Your council will be sent:

• an email containing NoC forms as PDF files daily. Each registration of an instrument will be in a separate file
• NoC information in XML format so it can be imported directly into council databases
• an NoC Lite report. 

Notice of Change emails are sent to email addresses nominated by your council. You can update these addresses at any time.

If you want support importing the XML into your databases, please contact your customer relationship manager.

About Notice of Change Lite reports

A NoC Lite report shows instruments, excluding Court Orders, with ownership changes registered but not completed. The conveyancing professionals didn't finalise a NoC or mark it as Ready to Send, which sends the NoC to you on registration.

A NOC Lite report may also be generated when a change of mortgagor occurs in an instrument. A mortgagor can change multiple instruments at once, which creates a long list of title references in a report. However, this will not affect the identity of the ratepayer.

On the NOC Lite report

The report will show you an instrument number, instrument type, Record of Title and practitioner's name. You can use this information to follow up with the practitioner about preparing a sales notice post registration. New Landonline offers practitioners the option of creating a NoC post registration.

Help improve the NoC service

If you have ideas for improving the Notice of Change service, please contact your customer relationship manager.