What the records show
For every block, Lotline measures each boundary against every legal road parcel beside it. A block has road frontage when it shares at least 5 m of boundary with legal road. Here is how the 404,139 blocks fall:
| Road frontage on the records | Blocks | Share | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Road frontage to formed road | 316,963 | 78.4% | The usual case. A report still shows each road, its length and its surface. |
| Paper road only | 20,215 | 5.0% | Legal road that was never built. Whether it gives practical access is a question for a surveyor or lawyer. |
| Legal road with no road mapped | 11,077 | 2.7% | Legal road on the plans, but no formed road mapped along it and not listed as unformed either. |
| Beside a Māori roadway only | 1,277 | 0.3% | Not a public road; who may use it is set by the Māori Land Court. |
| No road frontage found | 54,607 | 13.5% | No legal road along any boundary in the records we read. |
Where the access usually is
Of the 54,607 blocks with no road frontage found, 25,342 (46.4%) have a surveyed easement area on or beside them: often a right of way across a neighbour’s land. Others are reached through a shared access lot, held in shares with neighbouring titles. Either way the access depends on the title’s instruments, not on a road, and only a lawyer reading the title can say what they allow.
By region
| Region | Blocks | No road frontage found | Paper road only |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nelson | 1,052 | 28.2% | 6.5% |
| Marlborough | 8,921 | 25.2% | 12.2% |
| Wellington | 18,954 | 20.3% | 3.0% |
| Northland | 46,121 | 18.6% | 6.3% |
| Bay of Plenty | 23,519 | 17.6% | 3.5% |
| Auckland | 39,004 | 16.1% | 2.9% |
| Gisborne | 7,800 | 15.6% | 3.9% |
| Tasman | 11,078 | 14.2% | 11.2% |
| Hawke’s Bay | 18,179 | 13.9% | 3.2% |
| Waikato | 58,493 | 12.8% | 2.7% |
| Manawatū-Whanganui | 39,863 | 12.1% | 4.5% |
| Otago | 29,457 | 10.9% | 8.5% |
| Canterbury | 51,187 | 9.3% | 3.3% |
| West Coast | 10,314 | 9.0% | 15.0% |
| Taranaki | 18,349 | 7.7% | 3.9% |
| Southland | 21,847 | 5.9% | 7.5% |
What to check
- Look the block up: the free lookup shows whether road frontage was found and draws it on a map.
- If there’s none, ask the seller how the block is reached, and ask a lawyer to check the easement or right of way on the title.
- A road you can drive on isn’t always legal road, and a legal road on the plans isn’t always a road you can drive on.
More in the guides: blocks with no road frontage and paper roads.