Every date owned, dated and verified, and digested to you each morning. A deadline that has not been checked against Immigration New Zealand is shown as unverified rather than as done.
Open Deadlines
Trust · IAA Code of Conduct 2014
The Code is the product, not a module.
The obligations are wired into the moments they arise, clause by clause, rather than sitting in a policy document nobody opens.
How the Code is wired in
The obligations are attached to the moments they arise rather than collected in a policy document. Engagement terms, conflicts, complaints, supervision and file completeness are objects in the product, not a compliance tab. Clerq cannot discharge an obligation or prevent a complaint. What it does is make the record complete enough to answer with.
- Instrument
- Licensed Immigration Advisers Code of Conduct 2014, made under s 37(4) of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007
- Retention
- No less than seven years from closing the file, cl. 26(e)
- What Clerq does not do
- Guarantee compliance. The obligation sits with the licence holder.
What the Tribunal actually cites.
Across the 100 most recent Immigration Advisers Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal decisions, three clauses come up again and again. All three are things a system either does, or fails to do.
Out of 100 decisions published at justice.govt.nz, analysed August 2026. A decision commonly cites more than one clause.
cl. 1
88of 100
Due care, diligence and timeliness
Dates missed, replies never sent, and matters left to go quiet. The most cited clause in the set, and the one a practice system is for.
cl. 18
79of 100
Written agreements
No agreement, or one that never matched the work actually done. A document the file should have produced on day one.
cl. 26
74of 100
File management
Notes that were never written and correspondence that never reached the file. What the Tribunal reads when it asks what happened.
The file is the evidence
Two years later, nobody remembers the conversation. The file either recorded it, or it did not.
Every clause has somewhere to live.
Not a compliance module bolted to the side. Each obligation sits in the part of the product where the work actually happens, so meeting it is a by-product of doing the job.
Checked and recorded at the moment the obligation arises, not at the end. The check is part of opening the matter, so there is no version of the file where it was skipped.
Open CasesProduced from the file, with the terms that the matter needs, rather than retyped from whichever agreement was open last. The file knows what was agreed, because the file made it.
Open CasesEvery file from first enquiry to closure, with the record built as you work rather than assembled afterwards from memory and a mailbox.
Open CasesA real practice mailbox, filed to the matter as it arrives rather than after the fact. Nothing depends on an adviser remembering to forward it.
Open MailThe consultation becomes the file note, with consent taken before anything records. The note is written from the conversation itself, not from what was recalled a week later.
Open MeetingsA custody register, so you can answer where a passport is without opening a drawer. Every movement in and out is dated and attributed.
Open FilesThe obligation arrives before the paperwork does.
A clause is easy to satisfy on the day you are asked about it and hard to satisfy two years later. Clerq asks at the point the duty arises, which is the only point at which the answer is cheap.
cl. 5 to 7
Before a word of advice is given, the conflict check is part of opening the matter. It is recorded against the file with the date and the person who ran it.
cl. 17 to 19
The written agreement is produced from the file, carrying the scope and the fees this matter actually has, and is stored against it rather than in somebody’s drive.
cl. 26(c)
Consent is taken first, then the consultation becomes the file note. The note exists before the meeting is over, which is the only time it is cheap to write.
cl. 1
Every date is owned by a person, dated, and verified against Immigration New Zealand. Until it is verified it is shown as unverified, never as done.
cl. 26 and 27
Originals go back with the movement recorded, and the file closes whole: correspondence, notes, agreement and dates in one place that outlives whoever ran the matter.
A policy document, or a system.
Most practices already have the policy. What the Tribunal reads is the file, and the file is made by whatever software the practice ran that week.
Written agreements
A template in a shared drive, edited from whichever matter was open last. Produced from the matter, carrying the terms that the matter actually needs.
File notes
Whatever somebody remembered to type up, some days after the conversation. Written from the consultation itself, at the time, with consent taken first.
Deadlines
A reminder somebody set, assuming somebody set one. Owned, dated and verified, and raised with you before it can lapse.
Original documents
An email thread, and a drawer somebody has the key to. A custody register that can answer the question in one line.
More in Trust
Start with the file you are worried about.
We onboard one practice at a time, so the first conversation is a working one: your overdue dates, the documents you are still chasing, and what the system would have done about them.