What is on an apartment LIM report?

Summary:

LIM reports stand for Land Information Memorandum and includes what your rates, the water and drainage, the consent for the property when built and any modifications that may have occurred over the lifetime of the apartment. It also includes any special land features that be of significance to the building or surrounds.

It will also include whether or not the apartment can be used for either residential, commercial or both.

The cost of everything will be including as will the way in which these charges are measured.

Any changes in consent, for example new cladding or repairs is included too.

Once any changes or repairs have been completed the updated check from Council will be highlighted within the LIM report and enable you to know if anything hasn’t been done properly.

TRANSCRIPTION:

What is on an apartment LIM report? LIM report stands for Land Information Memorandum.  I'm going to go through this topic today, and I will show you a bit of an example. First you type in Google: "What is on an apartment LIM report?"

If we are looking at that, you are going to have basically your rates. These rates are what you pay on that property to the council. You are going to have your water and your drainage. How is water used and how is the drainage done? Is it on the plans and all that kind of thing? You will have your consents for the property. If you are in a complex, then this goes back to when the consents were first put in when your building was built. What had to be done, what had to be looked at. Now, was there flooding? Was it in a flooding zone? What was the zone it was in? That kind of thing and not just the consents for the whole complex, but also consents on the actual individual unit.

For example, it may be a two-bedroom but it was turned to a one-bedroom so it had to get consent. This is after it was built or all kinds of modifications could have been done to the unit. All these will appear in the LIM report. So, this is where you check to see what's on record for this actual unit is? What's in place before your current building? Is it being used commercially or is it being used residentially? If you are buying it and it is being used residentially, but it was used commercially before, then it is going to show up on this LIM report as being a bit different. That is very important. Also the special land features and things like that.

Okay, so we are going to quickly go through this since this is obviously for somebody who is checking out a property. They are going to buy as a Morningside Drive, okay? And you can see it has got the actual address of the unit which is for the LIM report. Also, all the other addresses concerned, so you can see a LIM report for an apartment complex is quite different because it is involving so much more.

You can see all the other units in the complex. It is pretty standard. Then as you go through this, it is going to go to the obligations. Everyone can see here the financial and what we need to pay. Which is the rates like property rates and so on. Previous year's rates are equivalent to $1,308. Total charges and other things you need to pay. Now then you are going down to water services. How is water charged? You will see on the report that it is based on consumption, as in it is charged by the user.  How much the user uses and then you are charged accordingly.

Drainage and water service plans and private drainage plans. This all had to have consent for when the actual complex was being built. Then you go down to consents and permits that happened when they were actually building it. For example, what is good here is that you can see what consents have happened since it was built. You can see here that cladding was a reclad. Obviously, this complex had some weather tight issues, so that may need to be investigated.

Now, if you were not aware of that, it is really good that that came up on the report. You are seeing it there and it is also obviously been ticked off by council. It has been approved for 150 years and that could be, if you knew about it. That is a positive thing because you know that the council at the moment  or the CCC, which is the Certificate of Code of Compliance was given by the council. They are very tough so this shows that the building's going to be in very good shape, so it is a positive.

You can see here it is reclad on different sides like Driveways and so on. And as you go through it, it gives you a bit  more information on the property. More in-depth and lawyers love to go through LIM reports and see if everything's actually in line with the information you are given. It is important to actually get a LIM report  as you can see here. When was the last water fitness for the complex been done? That is when they do things like your sprinkler checks or your sensor checks and all that kind of thing.

Now, we are still going to go to your land information memorandum as we go down to planning. What design is it in, all that kind of thing? Now here it is when you go to special land features. You go, "Okay, this site is potentially at risk of flooding." That is something you want to be concerned about. Fortunately, this complex was actually built where you've got all underneath it is all the car parks. You've got your apartments on top and, obviously, it's got drainage to actually mitigate that possibility.

I have not ever seen flooding in that area, but apparently it is prone to it, as it says here in the half-hundred year flood. Basically, a LIM report is important. A lot of people say a LIM report is not needed for an apartment, but I still think it is something you need to get. Your due diligence and why you should be requesting, or you've been putting in your seller purchase agreement. It is not that important they say. LIM reports are not as important because obviously your building's only going to get a warrant of fitness or things like that.

If there is something wrong with the building and, obviously you can see it. It is going to be in your body corporate minutes because there is a lot more visibility compared to it in a house. When you're buying a house for example and what's been done. Yet, if you want to be really, really due diligent, I still recommend getting one. Anyway, hope that helps and it gives you an idea of what a LIM report is.

I would go a little bit further and what it does. On the LIM report, you will see all types of attachments. This will comprise of all the consents. All of the things attached went you through the council. I have got a summary form, you will see it here. You have got pages and pages of different consents that were put through. What is this one? Morningside and the original consent to a management application to apply for financial contributions.

This is obviously going back to 2000, so this is when the complex was being built. All that kind of stuff and it gets very boring. But if you want to look into something more specific, that's where you'll find it. Hope that helps. Andrew Murray, Apartment Specialists.

Cheers.