Te Tii (Waitangi) B3 Trust
PAST
Te Tii (Waitangi) B3 Trust (“the Trust”) administers 70 Maori freehold land blocks at Waitangi. The land known as Te Tii was part of an area that was originally alienated to Henry Williams prior to the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.
In 1839 Henry Williams returned the Te Tii block. By the time the Trust was established on 15 April 1954 this part of the Te Tii block was known as Te Tii B and eventually came to be known as Te Tii (Waitangi) B3.
The Trust was established in 1954 with 300 beneficial owners recorded in the 1st Trust Order.
On 16 May 1981 the Court varied clause 12 definition of beneficiaries substituting a new definition of those who are the original owners of the block or their descendants as recorded by the Maori Land Court on succession. Effectively succession had to be completed to qualify as a beneficiary.
On 23 January 2003 the trust order was varied by way of a substitute trust order expressing that the definition of beneficiaries returned to the descendants of the original 251 tupuna.
Thus, the current trust order expresses that it is the whakapapa to the original 251 owners that determines the beneficiaries and not the Court’s list of owners.
By 2010 the Court’s record shows there to be 1,317 owners however the current beneficiaries are estimated to number more than 5,000, though a register is not kept.
PRESENT
As the years progressed, Te Tii (Waitangi) B3 Trust evolved from a land administration body into a vehicle for hapū development and collective wellbeing. While the whenua remained at the heart of its responsibilities, the aspirations of its people — the descendants of the 251 original owners — began to reach beyond land tenure and into the social, cultural, and economic wellbeing of whānau.
Out of this shared vision, Ngā Uri o Maikuku rāua ko Huatakaroa 1891 Trust (NUOMRKH) was established as the charitable arm of Te Tii (Waitangi) B3 Trust. Its purpose is to uphold the legacy of our tūpuna, Maikuku and Huatakaroa, by creating pathways that support the health, education, housing, and cultural vitality of their descendants.
While Te Tii B3 continues to safeguard the whenua and assets on behalf of the beneficial owners, NUOMRKH was created to serve the people — the whānau and hapū who trace their whakapapa to these lands and to the tūpuna who first nurtured them. Together, the two trusts work in partnership: one as kaitiaki of the land, the other as kaitiaki of the people.
Through NUOMRKH, these ancestral connections are given new expression in kaupapa that strengthen whānau resilience, foster intergenerational wellbeing, and uphold the mauri of Te Tii — ensuring that the legacy of our tūpuna continues to live through both the whenua and the people it sustains.
