When you negotiate and sign an Extension of Lease, you are agreeing to commit to a number of legal obligations for a long period of time. Getting help from one of our lawyers can minimise risks of liability during your lease, and can help protect your business.

From $1100 + GST, our package includes a high level review of your Extension of Lease and disclosure document, a list of key suggested amendments and a walkthrough of these amendments with one of our lawyers.

NZ Legal operates in Australia, New Zealand the UK. In Australia, NZ Legal is a regulated law firm and is an incorporated legal practice with number 32845 regulated by the Law Society of New South Wales. In New Zealand and the UK, NZ Legal instead operates as a legal consultancy and is not a traditionally regulated law firm.

We have chosen to set up as a legal consultancy (rather than a regulated law firm) in New Zealand as it has made our expansion into the New Zealand market faster and easier, and it’s meant that we have a lower compliance burden and are able to significantly reduce our overhead costs when performing legal work. We are then able to pass on these cost savings to our clients, allowing us to provide high quality legal services to clients at a fraction of the cost of traditional firms.

So what’s the difference between NZ Legal NZ’s consultancy model and a traditional NZ law firm?

In many respects, we are similar. Like a law firm, we offer legal services to our small business clients covering the majority of their regular legal needs, including drafting and reviewing contracts and providing legal and regulatory advice. However, there are a few key differences and limitations which are important to be aware of, set out below. In our view, the benefits of engaging a legal consultancy outweigh these limitations which is why we’ve elected to operate this way in NZ. If you have any questions about any of these our team would be more than happy to discuss.

Our Lawyers: The legal services we provide in New Zealand are not provided by New Zealand qualified lawyers. Our lawyers are Australian-qualified lawyers or UK-qualified lawyers, who are familiar with New Zealand’s laws and requirements, and thus are able to provide high quality legal services to New Zealand businesses. Given the strong similarities between Australian, English and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Reserved Areas: We are not permitted to provide services in reserved areas of law under section 6 and section 35 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 (see here). These include appearing in court or conducting litigation proceedings, managing conveyancing matters, or giving advice under the Property (Relationships) Act 1976. As such, NZ Legal does not operate in these areas. We find these areas are rarely applicable to our small business clients seeking commercial legal advisory services.

Privilege: When working with traditional law firms, advice provided is considered “privileged”. This means that correspondence between a client and solicitor can, if made confidentially and for the purposes of legal advice, be withheld from a court or third party in connection with litigation proceedings. As NZ Legal operates as a legal consultancy, it means that certain advice we provide may not be “privileged” but rather will be treated in the same manner as advice from your accountants or anyone else who is not a regulated advisor such as a solicitor or barrister. This does not affect our confidentiality obligations to you, and our engagement letter confirms that any advice or discussions we have will be kept confidential. Given that NZ Legal do not operate in court-related or litigious matters, we find that privilege is rarely an issue relevant to our kind of legal work.

Insurance: NZ Legal is not required to have professional indemnity insurance that meets the New Zealand Law Society’s minimum requirements. Regardless, NZ Legal has chosen to maintain professional indemnity cover so our clients still benefit from insurance protection.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the ‘get started’ button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you’ve submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed-fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you’re happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online – easy!

Once you’ve formally accepted, we’ll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

NZ Legal is one of New Zealand’s leading property and overseas investment law practices. With significant experience in property transactions our Founding Director Adam Siddall has a passion for helping clients achieve commercially focused property outcomes.

Adam gained his Bachelor of Laws degree and legal experience in Auckland but he also has a unique connection with the United States. He played professional rugby for Team USA before completing a Master of Laws degree at the University of Southern California (USC). As a result he has a wide network of contacts and experience in both countries.

In addition to providing property related legal services, NZ Legal is able to access a network of professionals who can assist investors with sourcing property, finance, construction contacts and ongoing property management throughout New Zealand.