About 950 Auckland Council properties worth nearly $1 billion will be wiped from the record books if a council-owned body does not hurry up and file an annual return with the Companies Office.

The office was due to contact Auckland Council Property Ltd last night to inform the council-controlled organisation it had missed the August 31 deadline to file an annual return.

If the return is not filed within a month, the Registrar of Companies will begin action to remove the company from the register.

Auckland Council Property chief executive David Rankin yesterday attributed confusion between staff and external legal advisers about who was doing what within the organisation and not receiving notices from the Companies Office for not filing a return by August 31.

He expected the matter would be sorted before the next deadline.

Auckland Council Property manages about 950 non-core council properties with a rateable value of $965 million.

It is scoping the portfolio with a view to selling about $100 million worth of surplus land and buildings to raise money for big projects, such as the $2.4 billion inner-city rail loop.