Local Government (Water Services) Act 2025

Structural arrangements for providing water services - Responsibility for providing water services - Transfer of responsibilities, etc, to water organisation

12: Transfer agreement with water organisation

You could also call this:

"Agreeing to pass on water service responsibilities to a water organisation"

Illustration for Local Government (Water Services) Act 2025

If you are a territorial authority, you might want to transfer your responsibility for providing water services to a water organisation. You will need to enter into a transfer agreement with the water organisation. This agreement will say what responsibility for water services and what infrastructure you are transferring to the organisation.

You can enter into a transfer agreement with a water organisation that you have established or that you are a shareholder in. When you enter into a transfer agreement, you must adopt it by resolution. If two or more territorial authorities have established the water organisation, all of those authorities must enter into a transfer agreement at the same time.

Your transfer agreement must include the matters set out in Schedule 2. If your agreement does not say something is being transferred, it is taken to be retained by you. Your transfer agreement cannot include provisions that transfer your power to make bylaws, your role as a shareholder, or your power to delegate responsibilities under the LGA 2002.

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This page was last updated on 31 August 2025

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=LMS1004292.

Topics:

Environment and resources > Food and water safetyGovernment and voting > Local councilsHousing and property > Land use

11: Exception: transport corridors, or

"Councils in charge of roads must control stormwater systems on those roads."

13: Territorial authority’s actions before entering transfer agreement, or

"What a territorial authority must do before signing a water services agreement"

Part 2Structural arrangements for providing water services
Responsibility for providing water services: Transfer of responsibilities, etc, to water organisation

12Transfer agreement with water organisation

This section applies to a territorial authority that intends to transfer responsibility for providing water services to a water organisation.
The authority must enter into a transfer agreement with the water organisation under which the authority transfers to the organisation—
specified responsibility for providing water services; and
any specified water services infrastructure and other matters.

A territorial authority may enter into a transfer agreement with a water organisation—
that the authority has established; or
in which it is a shareholder.

A territorial authority that enters into a transfer agreement must adopt the agreement by resolution.
If 2 or more territorial authorities have established the water organisation,—
one of those authorities must not enter into a transfer agreement unless both or all of them do; and
those transfer agreements must be developed and entered into separately.

A transfer agreement must contain the matters set out in Schedule 2.
Despite subsection (6) and Schedule 2, any matter that a transfer agreement does not specify as being transferred is taken to be retained by the territorial authority.
A transfer agreement must not contain a provision that transfers any of the following:
the territorial authority’s power to make bylaws under this Act:
the territorial authority’s role as a shareholder of a water organisation:
the territorial authority’s power to delegate a responsibility, function, duty, or power under the LGA 2002.