NZ Building Answers

What conditions should I put in a house offer in NZ?

Updated June 2026

Short answer

The usual conditions in an NZ house offer are finance, a LIM, a building report, title approval and insurance. Each gives you a defined window to check something specific and a way out if the answer is bad. Deadlines are negotiated, you must act in good faith when relying on a condition, and your lawyer should draft the wording before you sign.

Source: Settled.govt.nz. Updated June 2026.

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Key facts

Common conditions: finance, LIM, building report, title approval, insurance
Each condition has a negotiated deadline
You must act in good faith when cancelling under a condition
Sale-of-own-home conditions often come with a vendor cash-out clause
Auction sales are unconditional, so conditions do not apply there

The conditions most offers start with

The standard sale and purchase agreement has common conditions built in, and your lawyer tailors them to the property. Vendors see your conditions before they accept, so each one is also a negotiation signal:

Finance: written confirmation your lender will fund this purchase
LIM: time to order and approve the council's information on the property
Building report: a pre-purchase inspection you are satisfied with
Title approval: your lawyer's review of the title and anything registered on it
Insurance: confirmation you can insure the property on acceptable terms

Conditions that depend on your situation

If you need to sell your current home first, a sale condition makes the purchase depend on it. Vendors sometimes accept these with a cash-out clause, which lets them keep marketing the property and gives you a short window to go unconditional if another buyer appears. For complex properties, a broader due diligence condition gives you room to investigate anything material within an agreed period. Due diligence conditions are broad by design, and vendors know it, so expect more resistance to them than to the standard set.

Deadlines and good faith

Every condition carries a deadline, negotiated in the offer, and the timeframes need to be realistic: a LIM can take around two weeks to arrive, and inspectors and lawyers need booking. You are also expected to act in good faith. A finance condition protects a buyer who genuinely cannot get funding; it is not a casual exit. Keep evidence of your efforts if you ever need to rely on one.

Deadlines can be extended by agreement, and often are when a LIM is slow to arrive. Ask early rather than letting a date lapse, because the consequences of a missed deadline depend on the wording, and that is lawyer territory.

Fewer conditions is a sharper offer, with sharper risks

In competitive situations buyers trim conditions to look attractive, and vendors prefer clean offers. Dropping a condition means doing that check before you offer instead, or accepting the risk with open eyes. Which conditions you can safely shorten or satisfy in advance is exactly the conversation to have with your lawyer before you sign anything. And once the last condition is satisfied, the deposit usually falls due, so have those funds ready to move.

Before you hire

Knowing the rules is half the job. The other half is knowing who you're hiring. Check any NZ builder against the public record: company status, licensing and insolvency notices, from the official NZ sources.

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