Question 1

What is Parcela?

Accepted Answer

Parcela is an institutional property due-diligence platform covering New Zealand, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. From a single address it builds a notarial-grade report in under 30 seconds: parcel extent, planning, risks, geology, comparables, ESG and an AI narrative.

Question 2

How does the New Zealand identifier work — is there a parcel number?

Accepted Answer

New Zealand has a single national cadastre, so the boundary is unambiguous. You enter an address or the legal description / appellation (for example "Lot 1 DP 23743"); Parcela resolves it against LINZ NZ Primary Parcels — the survey-accurate cadastre maintained by Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand — and retrieves the parcel boundary, area and legal description directly.

Question 3

Is the parcel boundary official?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Parcela uses LINZ NZ Primary Parcels — the national survey-accurate cadastre that underpins the record of title under New Zealand’s Torrens system (Land Transfer Act 2017). Ownership is guaranteed by the state through the record of title, and a LINZ-searched title plus the council LIM are the authoritative legal documents. The displayed boundary does not replace a registered surveyor’s peg-out for construction.

Question 4

Why does New Zealand land DD need GNS and GeoNet?

Accepted Answer

New Zealand straddles the Pacific–Australian plate boundary, so seismic, fault and volcanic hazards are first-order. GNS Science maintains the QMAP national geology and the NZ Active Faults Database; the Ministry for the Environment’s active-fault guidelines set fault-avoidance zones that constrain building near a fault trace. GeoNet (operated by GNS) gives near-real-time earthquake data and the official volcanic alert levels for the Taupō Volcanic Zone, Auckland Volcanic Field, Taranaki and Ruapehu. Structural design follows NZS 1170.5; liquefaction-prone ground — as the Canterbury earthquakes showed — is screened from the QMAP and regional hazard layers.

Question 5

How does Parcela handle district-plan zoning?

Accepted Answer

Planning is territorial under the Resource Management Act — each of New Zealand’s ~67 councils maintains its own district plan and GIS, and there is no national zoning portal. Parcela reads the parcel from the national LINZ cadastre and routes the planning query to the right council, surfacing the zone and its key rules (permitted activities, building/site coverage, height, yards and the height in relation to boundary / recession plane), including the medium-density residential standards where a council has notified them. The Auckland Unitary Plan is integrated; where a council’s plan is not machine-readable it falls back to a deep link rather than blocking the report.

Question 6

How does Parcela assess flood and coastal risk in New Zealand?

Accepted Answer

Flood-hazard mapping is held by the 16 regional and unitary councils (Auckland Council, Greater Wellington, Environment Canterbury and so on), informed by Ministry-for-the-Environment and NIWA river-flood and coastal-inundation modelling. Parcela overlays the regional council flood layer for the section’s catchment and references NIWA/MfE coastal-inundation and sea-level-rise data for low-lying coastal sites — an increasingly mandatory LIM disclosure.

Question 7

What geology and ground data does Parcela use?

Accepted Answer

GNS Science QMAP 1:250,000 national geology — bedrock plus Quaternary cover — together with liquefaction-susceptibility screening from the QMAP and the regional hazard layers. New Zealand has no national geotechnical-borehole register comparable to the Netherlands’ BRO, so a site-specific geotechnical investigation is still required, particularly on alluvial, reclaimed or steep-slope ground.

Question 8

What elevation and terrain data does Parcela use?

Accepted Answer

The LINZ 8 m national digital elevation model, with denser regional LiDAR (1 m where a council or LINZ has flown it) used in preference where available. Heights drive slope, A–A′ cross-sections and per-section elevation. The horizontal datum is NZGD2000 with the NZTM2000 projection (EPSG:2193).

Question 9

How does Parcela handle Māori land?

Accepted Answer

Parcela flags Māori freehold land administered under Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993, which has a distinct legal status — alienation and development are governed by the Māori Land Court and the owners’ collective, not the ordinary Land Transfer process. It is surfaced as context for specialist legal review, never as a simple risk score.

Question 10

Does Parcela replace a LIM, a title search or a survey?

Accepted Answer

No. The Parcela report is a technical pre-assessment. A council LIM (Land Information Memorandum), a LINZ title search (ownership, easements, covenants, consent notices), a registered surveyor’s survey, a geotechnical investigation and a solicitor’s review remain necessary before you go unconditional. Parcela consolidates the open public data so you enter those steps already informed. Note too that overseas buyers may need Overseas Investment Office consent under the Overseas Investment Act 2005.

Question 11

What pricing is available?

Accepted Answer

A Property Report from NZ$129, a Due Diligence report from NZ$399 — one-off, no subscription. For regular use, monthly packs (Starter, Professional, Enterprise) cut the per-report price by 25–60%. White-label, REST API and SSO sit in the Professional and Enterprise plans. All prices exclude GST.

Question 12

Which markets does Parcela cover?

Accepted Answer

New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Poland, Germany, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Belgium, Spain, the United Kingdom and Switzerland — 17 markets, New Zealand being the first in Oceania. For New Zealand: LINZ NZ Primary Parcels cadastre, RMA district-plan zoning, GNS QMAP geology + the NZ Active Faults Database, GeoNet seismicity + volcanic alert levels, MfE/NIWA flood and coastal inundation, the LINZ 8 m DEM, Stats NZ census and NASA POWER solar.