so I ended up just printing out JPLP N5 vocabulary list.. from http://www.tanos.co.uk/jlpt and then compared it to http://nihongoichiban.com/2011/05/04/jl … %E3%81%84/ which is the same list, but to my dismay there are discrepancies in the kanji column. like on the first page for

あかるい　tano site:　明い　the other site: 明るい;
あたたかい　　tano site: 暖かい　other site: 温かい -this one is confusing because both have the same pronounciation but only one of the kanji you need to know for the N5 I think.

which one is it for the jlpt N5 and are both correct?

on top of that some words are on some lists and on other lists they're not. but both lists say it's the 800 vocab words that need to be learned.... so what gives.

From what I've read, there are no officially published JLPT lists. Any list provided is just someone's best guess, or has been compiled from a study guide.

They used to publish a list a few years back but they always said that up to 20% of the test would come from outside the official list.