What the next owner wants to see

Every owner looks after a home for a while, then hands it on. The house carries on after we leave it, and whoever comes next inherits our care or our neglect, whether they can see it or not. Most of the time they can't. The good work and the shortcuts both end up behind paint and linings, and the new owner moves in with whatever story the house can tell about itself.

That is what the next owner wants to see: not a perfect house, but proof of care. The only proof that survives a sale is a record.

What the buyer asks

Buyers ask the human questions. How old is the roof? When was it last painted, and with what? Who did the kitchen? Is the deck consented? Has it ever leaked? Each one has a short, confident answer if the record exists, and a shrug if it doesn't.

A shrug is not neutral. It reads as risk, and buyers price risk. The house may be in better order than the one down the road, but if nobody can show it, it doesn't count for much on the day.

What the lawyer reads

The buyer's lawyer reads the LIM, the council's summary of what it holds on the property, including consents and the certificates issued for them. The lawyer is looking for work that was consented but never signed off with a Code Compliance Certificate, and for work that was never consented at all. Settled, the Real Estate Authority's home-buying guide, is plain that this is where the difficulties arise.

Three things about the council's records are worth knowing. First, they only hold what the council was told. Auckland Council says it directly: if work was done without consent, it will not be in the property file. Second, a LIM does not show everything. A weathertightness problem the council never heard about won't be on it. Third, older homes have their own wrinkle: work done before the Code Compliance Certificate came into effect in July 1992 won't have one, which is normal, but worth being able to explain.

An owner who has the consents, the certificates and the plans filed can answer the lawyer's questions in an email. An owner who doesn't can spend the conditional period chasing the council.

What the inspector looks for

The building inspector looks for what is hidden. Moisture in the walls, the state of the subfloor, a roof near the end of its life, signs of work that may not have been consented, and the reason behind a patch of fresh paint. Settled recommends a comprehensive report to the New Zealand standard, NZS 4306, that sets out defects and the maintenance coming up.

Where there is a record, those questions have answers. The roof was replaced in a known year, by a named roofer, with the warranty and its conditions on file. The new circuits have a Certificate of Compliance, which WorkSafe tells owners to keep because it may be needed when they sell. The fresh paint on the south wall followed a repair, and there are photos of what was found and how it was put right.

Where there is no record, each of those becomes a question in the report, and a question in a report is something to negotiate over.

What the law hands on, and what it can't

Here is a part of selling that rarely gets talked about. Residential building work in New Zealand carries implied warranties under the Building Act for up to ten years, and the Act lets later owners enforce them. So when you sell, the builder's promises go with the house for whatever is left of those ten years.

The builder's name does not. MBIE's own review of building consumer protection notes that later owners have no contract or previous contact with the original builder, and that they can pursue a defect if they have the information about who the builder was.

The law hands the next owner the builder's promises. Only your record hands them the builder's name.

The record that answers all three

The same set of documents answers the buyer, the lawyer and the inspector. Consents, Code Compliance Certificates and plans for the lawyer. Invoices, warranties, certificates and the names of the trades for the inspector. Photos of work as it happened, the paint colours, the service history and the care that was done each year, for the buyer.

A property that has kept these is not easier to sell because it is a better house. It is easier to sell because the buyer can see what they are buying. What they are really buying is a home they will want to live in, and the record is how they know it has been looked after.

Handing it on

A drawer of invoices and three old email accounts cannot be handed over. A record can.

If you keep your record in the Archive, your Property Portfolio is a PDF of it, yours to keep and to hand on: to the agent for the sale, and to the buyer. If you would like the new owner to carry on where you left off, you can also hand the property's Archive to them for the rest of your paid year, arranged with our team.

Leaving it better

To me, stewardship comes down to this. You look after a home well while it is yours, and you hand it on in better order than you found it, with its story intact. The work is mostly small and mostly unseen. The record is how it gets seen.

That is how I look after the one home a year I take on personally through Private Stewardship, and it is how we look after every home our team works on. You can read more about how we work.