The Land Transfer Act 2017 (the Act), regulations, and other legislation allow a caveat and other stops to be entered in the register to prevent or restrict dealings in certain circumstances.
This guideline explains the statutory requirements and procedures governing the following forms of stop notice:
- caveats
- notices of claim under the Property (Relationships) Act 1976
- statutory land charges
- charging orders
- other stops (such as freezing orders).
Update note
On 28 June 2023 changes were made to the guideline to:
- update section 1.4.4 on how a notice is given by post under sections 221 and 223 of the Act following the High Court’s decision in Cooper v Cooper [2023] NZHC 1403
- update the formatting of the guideline including renaming schedules to appendices
- update references from ‘the RGL’ to ‘the Registrar’ in line with the terminology used in the Act, and
- remove the form of caveats against dealings previously in schedule 3 which can be found in the Approved Paper Forms for the Land Transfer Act 2017 – LINZLF01231.
This replaces earlier updates to section 1.4.4 of the guideline made on 20 September 2021. Those updates were made to better reflect the processes that applied at the time to:
- making an application to lapse
- the Registrar’s notice to the caveator of an application to lapse
- the caveator’s notice to the Registrar, and
- our previous practice of treating NZ Post’s Courier Post as physical delivery (rather than post as since updated).