Plain language law

New Zealand law explained for everyone

Resource Management Act 1991

Resource consents - Transfer of consents

138: Surrender of consent

You could also call this:

“You can give up your permission to do something, but there are rules about how to do it”

You can give up your resource consent if you don’t want it anymore. This is called surrendering your consent. To do this, you need to tell the consent authority in writing.

You can give up all of your consent or just a part of it. But the consent authority might say no if you only want to give up part of it. They can do this if they think it would cause problems with the rest of the consent, make it hard for you to follow the other rules, or be bad for the environment.

Even if you give up your consent, you’re still responsible for any rules you broke before you gave it up. You also need to finish any work the consent says you have to do, unless the consent authority tells you that you don’t have to.

Your consent isn’t officially given up until the consent authority sends you a notice saying they accept it. Once you get this notice, your consent (or part of it) is no longer yours.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM235272.

Topics:
Environment and resources > Conservation
Environment and resources > Town planning
Government and voting > Local councils
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137: Transferability of discharge permits, or

“Rules for sharing or moving a permit that allows you to release stuff into the environment”

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138A: Special provisions relating to coastal permits for dumping and incineration, or

“Rules for getting special permits to dump or burn things in coastal areas”

Part 6 Resource consents
Transfer of consents

138Surrender of consent

  1. The holder of a resource consent may surrender the consent, either in whole or part, by giving written notice to the consent authority.

  2. A consent authority may refuse to accept the surrender of part of a resource consent where it considers that surrender of that part would—

  3. affect the integrity of the consent; or
    1. affect the ability of the consent holder to meet other conditions of the consent; or
      1. lead to an adverse effect on the environment.

        1. A person who surrenders a resource consent remains liable under this Act—

        2. for any breach of conditions of the consent which occurred before the surrender of the consent; and
          1. to complete any work to give effect to the consent unless the consent authority directs otherwise in its notice of acceptance of the surrender under subsection (4).

            1. A surrender of a resource consent takes effect on receipt by the holder of a notice of acceptance of the surrender from the consent authority.