How do I check if a house is a cross-lease in NZ?

First, the record of title. Every property has one, and the ownership type is stated on it. Your lawyer will order it as a matter of course, and you can buy a copy yourself from LINZ through their Land Record Search for a few dollars. It arrives as a legal document, so you need to know what you are looking at.

Second, ask the agent. Listing agents hold the title packet for the properties they market and must give it to you on request. If a listing says nothing about tenure, that is your first question.

Third, an address-level check. Typing the address into a property checker that reads the title type gives you the answer in plain English before you spend anything on documents.

A cross-lease means you own a share of the land jointly with your neighbours and lease your home from the group. Alterations that change the building's footprint usually need every other owner's consent, and an out-of-date flats plan can hold up settlement or finance.

None of that makes a cross-lease a bad buy. It makes it a different buy, with questions to settle before you commit: is the flats plan current, what do the lease terms restrict, and how have the owners handled consents in the past.

Get the flats plan alongside the title and compare it with what is actually built. A conservatory or carport that is not on the plan means the title may be defective, which is fixable but costs time and money, and is the seller's problem to price, not yours to inherit silently.

Ask your lawyer to review the lease terms before you sign anything. This is standard work for a property lawyer and one of the strongest arguments for engaging one before, not after, the offer.