A New Plymouth property owner is urging new home buyers not to rely on Land Information Memorandum (LIM) reports after wrong information got him into a planning wrangle with the district council.

Geoff Leadley said he was misled by an LIM report for a rural property he bought in Brixton, north of New Plymouth, in 2018, which omitted details of a wahi taonga (an area significant to Māori).

LIM reports are legally binding documents containing everything known by the relevent council about a property and any issues that might affect it.

When Leadley applied to the New Plymouth District Council (NPDC) for resource consent to build a 60m-long "acoustic" wall along the boundary with State Highway 3 to block traffic noise was surprised to hear he needed to consult a third party.

He said a duty planner told him there was a sensitive site on the 0.5 hectare property and local iwi needed to be consulted.

Leadley said the LIM report did not highlight any wahi taonga and a land surveyor told him the nearest one was 200m-300m away.

Checks later confirmed there there was no wahi taonga site on the property.

While a wahi taonga did feature on the current district plan, NPDC said it was incorrectly mapped and the LIM should have reflected this.

​Leadley said his lawyer and valuer had been misled by the inaccurate information. He said this pointed to LIM reports being unreliable.

"Incorrect LIM reports can have a huge effect, at great expense to property buyers and developers, especially if there are wahi taonga sites involved," he said.

"​We acted on information which was negligently provided by the council.

Read the full article on stuff.co.nz here