Before you renovate, gather these documents

A renovation starts with paper. Before a designer draws a line or a builder prices a wall, someone has to know what is already there, what was consented, and what was signed off. Find the documents first and the first month of the project moves faster, with fewer unknowns priced into the quotes.

The gaps are where projects lose time. A sign-off that never happened on an old job can hold up the new consent, and a builder who can't see what is behind a wall prices the risk instead. I would much rather find the gap in week one than at the council counter.

The documents to find

1. The Record of Title. It shows who owns the property, its legal description, and the rights and restrictions registered against it: easements, covenants, consent notices and mortgages. A designer needs it before drawing anything near a boundary. Your lawyer holds a copy from the purchase, or you can order a current one online from Land Information New Zealand. The title lists each easement or covenant but not its wording, so order those documents too if one could affect where you want to build.

2. Building consents and Code Compliance Certificates. Every consented job on the property should have a consent and, once finished, a Code Compliance Certificate (CCC). The consent says what was approved. The CCC says the council was satisfied the work matched it. It is the owner who applies for the CCC when the work is done. If nobody did, the council still has to decide on it once two years have passed since the consent was granted, and it can refuse. A consent with no CCC is an open job on the council file, and it comes up again with the new consent and again when you sell.

3. Records of work. Building work on the structure and weathertightness of a house, such as the foundations, framing, roof, cladding and external plaster, is restricted building work. On consented jobs it has to be done or supervised by a Licensed Building Practitioner (LBP), who gives you and the council a record of work when they finish. The owner needs those records to apply for the CCC, and they tell the next builder who did what.

4. Plans and producer statements. Floor plans, drawings of each side of the house, drainage plans and any engineer's details from earlier work. They save the designer measuring the whole house again, and they show where the drains run before anyone digs. Look too for producer statements: a professional's signed opinion that a design (a PS1) or the finished work (a PS3 from the installer, a PS4 from the engineer who checked it) meets the Building Code. A steel beam or a waterproofing membrane from an earlier renovation may have one on the council file.

5. Electrical and gas certificates. An electrician must give you a Certificate of Compliance for any fixed wiring work, down to a new power point. Some work, particularly on the main switchboard, main cable or main earth, must also be inspected, and the inspection report belongs with the certificates. Gasfitting ends with a Gas Safety Certificate, backed by certificates of compliance for general and high-risk work. The electrician and the gasfitter will ask for these, because they are about to connect to what is there.

6. The builder's completion pack. For residential building work done since 2015, the builder must give you, on completion, copies of their insurance policies, the guarantees and warranties on the materials and work (including how to claim and whether they transfer), and information on the maintenance the work needs. Find the pack from every earlier renovation. Roofs, joinery, membranes, heat pumps and paint systems all carry warranties, and some have conditions about who can work on or over them. The new builder needs to know what is still covered before touching it.

7. Invoices, and records of exempt work. Invoices name the trades, the products and the dates. They matter most for work that never needed a consent, because exempt work leaves nothing on the council file. It still had to meet the Building Code. In Auckland you can add a record of exempt building work, with drawings, to the property file, so the next builder and the next owner can see it.

Why everyone asks

Designers, builders and council are not being difficult. A builder pricing a kitchen wants to know whether the wall coming out is load bearing, and the plans tell them. A council processing a new consent checks it against what is already on the property file, and anything that doesn't line up gets questioned. Work a past owner did without a consent can sometimes be brought onto the file with a certificate of acceptance, but the council has to be satisfied the work complies, and that takes time. An electrician who can see the certificate for the last job can build on it. Without one, they test before they connect, and that time is on the invoice.

Where to find them

• The council property file. It holds the consents, CCCs, approved plans, inspection records and producer statements for every consented job. Auckland Council supplies a copy online for a fee, with a standard service and a faster urgent one. Allow a couple of weeks for the standard service, and order it first, because it takes the longest.
• Your lawyer's purchase file. The title, and the LIM report from when you bought. A LIM summarises what the council knows about the property, including its consents and certificates, but it is a summary, not the full file.
• Your own email. Search the builder's and electrician's names, and words like invoice, certificate, warranty and record of work.
• The previous owner, through the agent, if the sale was recent.
• The suppliers. A roofing or joinery manufacturer may be able to confirm a warranty from the address and an approximate date.

What to do next

Put what you find in one folder, named by the property, with a short list of what is missing. Then:

1. Order the council property file this week.
2. Check that every consent on it has a CCC, and every LBP job has a record of work.
3. Chase the gaps before the designer starts: the builder for a missing record of work, the electrician for a certificate, the council about an open consent.
4. Give the designer and every builder pricing the job the same set. How to brief them so the quotes line up is in How to brief a builder so the quotes compare.

If an open consent or unconsented work turns up, talk to your designer about it before anything new is drawn. It can change the order of the whole job.

If you keep your property's record in the Archive, most of this folder already exists. The consents, certificates, warranties and invoices sit against the property, and the gaps show before the first quote rather than at the council counter.