Session Four - Development Seminar 2003 Proceedings
Speakers:
Paul Harcombe, Chief Surveyor of Land & Property Information New South Wales
Les Gardner, President of the Institution Surveyors NSW
Tony Swallow, Director of Planning Information Development, Planning NSW
First I have got a one minute commercial. It’s on behalf of the Seniors Group of Surveyors. Some of you have heard it before but a good commercial is worth hearing again. The Seniors Group is open to any surveyor over 50 years of age which means you do not have to be in God’s waiting room called retirement in order to qualify. There are no group geographic boundaries. Meetings are held at 1.30pm in the Pocock Room, 3rd Floor, 363 Pitt Street, Sydney and those interested meet beforehand for lunch at the City of Sydney RSL Club.
The emphasis so far is on fellowship and matters of surveying heritage. The next two meeting dates for 2002 are 6th August when incidentally, at 10am on that day we are meeting beforehand to inspect the remarkable sundial at the University of New South Wales. And the other meeting for the year is 6 November. Visitors are always welcome and we have some regular visitors.
Now for information on the Seniors Group, if you think about it later, visit the Cumberland Group website www.cumberlandgroup.com.au and just follow the links. Secondly I would like to draw your attention to the stop press on the back of your program.
For those of you who are interested in surveying heritage items look out for next year’s 2003 FIG History Colloquia. It is on between 19th and 21st September 2003. Centered on the Maritime Museum and Sydney Harbour. Places to each of the outstanding events will be limited to around 200 so get in early when the registrations open I would suggest.
Now to get to the business in hand, the Cumberland Group has a very long association over many years with those State Government agencies which deal with and regulate land surveying, land titles and land information. Over this time the group has established close relationships with many different offices from those agencies. This important regular liaison occurs not just at the seminars but also at our ordinary group meetings. And that occurs throughout the year and also occurs with individual group members. Here I must acknowledge the role of David Norris, Senior Plan Examiner and Plan and Title Advisor. It is also somewhat of tradition that this fourth seminar session is devoted to these agencies and there is a very sound reason for this. It sustains interest throughout the day by finishing on a strong note which invariably informs those attending. Today’s fourth session is very much in keeping with that tradition.
Our first speaker is Paul Harcombe. Paul Harcombe is the Chief Surveyor of Land & Property Information New South Wales and is responsible for the survey program. Paul also exercises the statutory role of Deputy Surveyor General and is a member of the New South Wales Board of Surveyors and the Geographical Names Board. Paul was recently elected as Chairman of the Intergovernmental Committee for Surveying and Mapping, “ICSM”. The peak Australasian Government Body for Surveying and Mapping. Paul will bring us up to date with the review of the Board of Surveyors and the changes to the Surveyors Act. Please welcome Paul Harcombe.
Thanks Keith and thanks for the invitation to be here this afternoon. First of all apologies from Warwick Watkins, Surveyor General. He would’ve liked to have been here but there is a thing called Parliamentary Estimates that keeps people at his level very busy.
It seems I have been talking about legislative reform for a long long time and it does take a lot of time to get everybody’s views and everybody’s inputs. But today I have got some really good news. That we are making some headway and I will run through those as quickly as possible. What I would like to talk about is the review of the Board of Surveyors and the changes that are going to happen to the Surveyors Act. It seems we have been talking about this for about 10 years now but it is going to happen, it is getting closer. What’s pushing all this is of course, one of the drivers there is a national competition policy review of the Surveyors Act. This is driven by both the Commonwealth and State Governments and affects not only surveyors but a lot of other professions. All professions in fact. And it is about removing any competitive measures that might exist unless they are in the public interest. There are many many statutory boards. I have heard the figure of 3,000 statutory boards in New South Wales so the Premier instituted a review to see whether they should continue to exist, whether they could change the way they operate and certainly improve their role in their service delivery to the community. Then of course our Surveyors Act has been around now since 1929. It’s a long time and there is certainly a need there to modernise the Legislation.
I think there has been a couple of major milestones in the surveying area with FIG. The production of Cadastre 2014 was a benchmark. It really set the scene for a new and a broader view of the Cadastre. It is about rights and interests and obligations. It is about layers of information, it’s about registers of information on public record and land objects. So there is now a much broader view of layers of information of different types of interests. Of course we have heard a lot about the spatial data infrastructure and the action agenda. I am not here to talk about how the industry might organise itself through a spatial sciences coalition or otherwise. I am here to talk about the legislative framework that governs surveying and the operation of the Cadasta in New South Wales. There is a broader recognition now of knowledge specialists. The Gretley disaster where 4 coal miners died as a result of bad information on public record certainly brings the quality assurance of what we see on public record into sharp focus. So there is certainly an emphasis on quality assurance of the information that we all contribute and use.
A bit about the process. We completed the National Competition Policy (NCP) Review in June 2000. There was a call for public submissions. Cabinet endorsed the recommendations that came out of that review and at the same time the Board felt, because of those other issues, it was time to review its role and purpose. How it fitted into the broader agenda, how it related to the Cadastre and how it related to the various professions. We have undertaken a lot of consultation. There was a working party formed, a discussion paper that you probably would’ve read if you had accessed the Cumberland Group website. That was about a year ago on the regulation models. Talked about all of these issues, put forward options, put forward a model. Well April this year, two months ago, we had a stakeholder meeting. We had a series of these, and that involved all the key groups that represent surveying, spatial information and the educators in that broader sense. So there was institution input, AURISA, the Surveying and Mapping Industry Council, the Engineering & Mining Surveyors, ACS and Education. What was important there in we got an agreement in principle for a way ahead. Two weeks ago following that meeting we put together a Cabinet Minute. On 14th June Cabinet approved a Cabinet Minute which dealt with a number of amendments to the existing Surveyors Act. So the direction has been endorsed by Government. Those amendments cover these NCP outcomes and I will run through those now.
First of all the objectives of the Act. The (existing) Surveyors Act doesn’t have an objective. Pretty amazing that we have gone 70 years without an objective. Well it will. And the main objective will be to produce safeguard and maintain a State Cadastre of spatially referenced information. So all this talk about spatial information, about spatial referencing, it is going to be there in the Act. And that is through the Regulation Qualification of Cadastral Surveyors. The scope of the Board is going to bring together the family. We have Cadastral Surveyors who are regulated and registered. We have also got Mining Surveyors. Coal, metalliferous and quarry. There is around about 200 all up. There are about 150 Coal Mine Surveyors. Their regulators are bringing those regulatory functions together onto a single board.
This was the key issue that was addressed in the NCP. Is registration of surveyors in the public interest? And the answer was clearly yes. Why? Because fundamentally the work of surveyors and the competency of surveyors goes into our titling system for which the State guarantees. So there is a public interest benefit in that and Governments recognised that. Other States have gone through the same process and have had some different outcomes. Qualifications, the current standards and the requirements for registration as a surveyor are substantially retained. There is always room for improvement and always room to look at what is happening in other jurisdictions. But certainly in New South Wales we think that those standards are appropriate. Some of the PTA (professional training agreement) requirements should be incorporated into the Undergraduate Degree Course. PTA is covered in our Regulations. It’s the alternate method of gaining registration. It is gaining some popularity.
Naming of survey businesses and advertising. This was one small area in the Act that will be deregulated. It was felt that these industry specific restrictions on the naming and advertising of surveying firms should be removed. And they are covered through other mechanisms such as the Trade Practices Act. So that will be removed from the Surveyors Act.
The name of the Regulatory Body. Well it is going to change from The Board of Surveyors to The Board of Surveying & Spatial Information. So that recognises that with this broader definition of the Cadastre, the family of surveying and the linkages there into this broader umbrella and the emerging industry of spatial information. The membership, if you are going to change the name then obviously you need to have a different composition. So the representation on the Board will include representatives of Government, of surveyors, other professional groups and a consumer representative.
Discipline was one of the weak points in the Surveyors Act because it relied on the Board having been judge, jury and prosecutor. It hasn’t worked very well. So we have had a look at the various models of how other professions handle discipline, how other jurisdictions do it. The Board will be empowered to establish a Disciplinary Sub-committee to investigate complaints. Some of those will go to the industry, some will be investigated and some, if they are of a serious nature, will go through the Administrative Decisions Tribunal. Previously it was Supreme Court. Now it will be the Administrative Decisions Tribunal. Who is on the Tribunal? You have got a legally qualified person as the convenor, you will have a surveyor and you will have a lay person, an informed consumer. So that brings us into alignment with other professions such as vet surgeons, lawyers etc, that use this type of model. The model itself is joint administration where we are looking for more involvement from the industry. The Board will set the standards and the policies and we will be looking to industry to assess competencies, provide CPD and become more closely involved in how the professions are governed. And the scope will cover surveying and spatial information. Just to distinguish between what do we mean when we talk about registration and there is process of accreditation. Registration is a statutory authority to undertake a certain category of work, be it a coal mine surveying, be it cadastral surveying or whatever. Accreditation is non statutory. It’s recognition by industry of competency in a discipline or category of work. So we are working with industry on the standards for accreditation and we work together on a collaborative basis. We come up with standards for accreditation. If the Board is happy with that then that will signify acceptance by Government to contribute to this thing called the Spatial Data Infrastructure that we are all trying to build.
The next steps. We
have now got the go ahead so we will need to develop an exposure Draft
Bill. There is a lot more work to be done with industry on definitions
for standards for accreditation and there has got to be further consultation
with stakeholders on the Draft Bill and its implementation. We are hoping
that the next round of consultation when we have got a Draft Bill will
be around about July/August. We will be reactivating the working party
that did a lot of that good work in developing the discussion paper to
help us. The Bill we hope will go to Parliament in the spring session
in September of this year. Some time next year will be the commencement
and this is a pretty major milestone I think. So for 2002 - 2003 I think
we will see the finality of or the bringing together of much of what we
have talked about and I am very pleased to be involved with that and I
look forward to your continued co-operation and with that and with 10
minutes I will hand over to Les to talk a bit about the Surveyors Practice
Regulations and the other speakers. Thanks very much.
Les Gardner, DITM
Our next speaker from Land & Property Information at Bathurst is Les Gardner. He holds a Surveying Degree, a Science Degree and is a Registered Surveyor. He is the manager of the Cadastral Management Unit and he is going to bring us up to date on matters relating to survey practice. Please welcome Les Gardner.
LES GARDNER
Thank you Keith. What I am going to do today is the short sharp presentation of some of the changes that have happened to survey practice in the last 12 months so you know more than I do at the end of the day. SCIMS I will touch on, a bit on GPS and a little bit on Strata Titles.
Hopefully you are familiar with SCIMS. A bit of a snapshot of the overall accuracy classifications within SCIMS, that’s the various class classifications. At the moment we have over 103,000 established permanent marks on landscape within New South Wales. That’s out of a total of 187,000 and we are maintaining that network. And hopefully with your co-operation we’ll keep up with growth and development as it occurs. Also to support SCIMS we have had the adoption of GDA “Geocentric Datum of Australia” back in the year 2000. And we have been working on readjusting SCIMS. The same values, this is order within SCIMS. At the moment we have readjusted 37,000 values so they are the ones that will appear with a good order of Order 3 or better. There are still 66,000 marks in SCIMS that need to be readjusted. So it gives you an idea. They’re the ones that come up with and order of U - unknown or uncertain. So we have still got a bit of work to do and hopefully we will get that backlog down and keep up with development.
Also in SCIMS during May we propagated the heights off our digital terrain models. So almost every mark in SCIMS has got an approximate height. That helps with the provision of the combined scale factor. That will be calculated automatically if you do a SCIM search. The easiest way to see if it is and approximate height, it'll be only quoted to the nearest metre or nearest 10 metres. I have done a SCIM search here around the Sunnybrook Centre and there just happens to be one, an SSM out on the front driveway. It has an approximate height of 9 metres so instantly that, well it is fairly rough. All the rest are expressed to the millimetres. They may be that good, they may not, depending on the class of the mark. If you want to know more about the information you can always click on the little circle to get a picture of the SCIMS and where they relate to one another. The marks that plot red on the screen have got good height and good positions. Purple, good position only. Green, good height only. So this has been just an average search and every mark in the view has been surveyed and good quality information. But there is no height on the mark out on the front of the Sunnybrook Centre here. And if you want to know more information you click that more information button and you get all he details about a mark’s coordinates and values. The combined scale factor is computed there for all the various projections. And if you want to know more about the source, you go down and click on the source number for the height and it will bring up this comment here saying that height is derived from the digital terrain model. They are only as good as the contours that have come off the map. Be it a 25 thou map, 50 thou or 100 thou map. Still for 100 thou map obviously the heights aren't going to be as good. But it’ll be sufficient for you to compute a combined scale factor.
Locality sketch plans and deposited plans. Now when you deposit or plan or lodge at LPI at Sydney there is an automatic check with all the PMs and SSMs on the face of the plan. If other values in SCIMS being is the mark initialised? have we got a sketch plan? If the answer is no you may get a requisition with other requisitions that relate to that plan. We won't hold up the lodgment or the processing of that plan just on the sketch plans alone but it will attract a requisitions if there are other requisitions there. And we will follow up later on to get those sketch plans. And it is very important to get the sketch plans because we have some Councils that have done flood modeling work where they have placed a number of SSMs through the valleys and so forth. Because it is not a cadastral job we don’t know anything about it. If the local surveyors haven't forwarded the sketch plans in, Councils have kindly limited the height of any developments so you have got a restrict of an AHD height for anything that is going to be built there and then another surveyor comes along and you have got to locate a flood level of 25 metres AHD but the closest marks are going to be 15 kilometres away. If we don’t get the sketch plans in we can't feed the system so everyone else can build on that work. So it is extremely important if there is no DP to lodge the sketch plan and so as soon as the marks are placed, prepared the marks, we would greatly appreciate those sketch plans.
GPS. Survey Practice Regs. Specify Class B or better if you are using GPS. And you can use GPS for cadastral surveys. The only thing is if you do use GPS put a statement on the front of the plans saying that you have used GPS. The accuracy outcome of using GPS has got to be Class B and use SP1, version 1.4 it says. We will have to amend the Survey Practice Regs because we just got a new version of SP1. Version 1.5. And if you want to get a copy of it it is off the ANZLIC website. ICSAM is under ANSLIC so it is www.anzlic.org.au and you get that page. It is pretty good here today, really comes up quick. And they are all the publications from the ICSAM services I guess. And there is addressing, GDA technical manuals, SP1, Special Publication No. 1 for survey or standards and practices for control surveys. And that is the latest version. Mainly relates to position but I will get onto that a bit later.
I know people down the back can't read this but this is a couple of snippets, what’s in SP1. If you use GPS to do a cadastral survey every mark must be occupied at least twice. To get independent observations. And really it should be 10% of triple occupations of marks to get a redundancy built in. SP1 covers general the requirements for GPS and it also gets into specific techniques. Classic static based lines, rapid static or fast static techniques. Kinematic base lines or stop and go. And what you are probably more interested in is real time or RTK. That’s where you get the answers up front and most people are probably fairly familiar with this if you are using GPS. It does say in there that you have got to have independent base stations and at least two occupations of each. You can't use the same base station and radiate the mark and get the two different occupations on the mark. Because basically it is another radiation. That’s all you are doing, is radiating out from a base station. So you should use separate base stations and get a redundancy.
This is a diagram out of SP1. The red circles are the established control so in theory you should probably start from established or known values and traverse through with your base station through to a finish on a known station and then double radiate or triple radiate from various base stations to the marks. And so in that way you will any redundancies and checks on your work. All that is in SP1 rather than going through and putting it into the Survey Practice Regs. It’s a national standard. SP1 is also the standard for height, for levelling, rather than our old 1:12,000 or 1:10,000 accuracy classifications. Like I said SP1 was amended back in May this year and we now have Version 1.5 and basically the only real change was introduction of positional uncertainty and local uncertainty.
You have hopefully been familiar with class and order. Class is the position of the survey. The network, the position of the observations, the network design, the survey methods, the instruments used, the reduction technique to get an understanding of the accuracy of that job basically. And the Order is a function of how that Class fits in with the existing network and order also covers transformation techniques. Order will be phased out by the year 2005.
Positional uncertainty. Uncertainty of the coordinates or height with respect to a reference frame. In this case it is GDA94 and positional uncertainty is in millimetres so it is a bit more user friendly. Whereas Class and Order are in parts per million, which doesn’t mean much. It depends where you started from to determine where you end up. And local uncertainty is the average of the measure with respect to the adjacent network. It is absolute and relative position. Absolute is similar to the positional uncertainty. Relative position is local uncertainty. And SCIMS will have to be changed slightly to accommodate the two new positions here. Positional and local uncertainties. And Order will gradually be dropped out. A bit like the old accuracy code in SCIMS, the 1 to 9.
Strata Plans. Strata Plans have been around for quite some time now. Has to be based on Torrens Title Land. But the base plan in a Strata Scheme must be in accordance with the current Surveyors Practice Regulation. We tweaked this up slightly as of 1 June 2002. What that means is that the base plan must have closed connections from the survey control network. If it hasn’t got closed connections it won't be considered a suitable plan and a plan of redefinition will be required. That may cause a bit of angst in its transition. If there are problems you can always ask for an exemption. We will probably say no but you can always ask. But realistically if it is causing hardship in this transition certainly write to us and let us know.
Just a couple of examples to give you an idea. These are just survey plans I picked at random. Couple at Bathurst and Manly. Hope I haven't victimised anyone. We have had proclaimed survey areas for 50 years now and within proclaimed survey areas have been connecting to the network by a single radiation or two radiations. Generally those connections don’t satisfy the current Surveyors Practice Regulation. In this case there is just one radiation unchecked. There is not closed from the survey control network so you will need to do a redefinition plan. Just another example here. One radiation out to a mark. A redefinition is required. An example here where you have got two, a connection to one and just a bearing down the road to the other one. Still no closed connections from the network back to the job, to your base plan. You’d need a plan of redefinition. And again here is a similar case. You can use the survey control network to close against if the two marks are now coordinated or established. And you get a close using those coordinates that will be sufficient as a closed connection. You can use the survey control network to verify your results. But if you haven't got any redundancy it won't be sufficient, and a redefinition plan will be required. That’s short and sharp so we are trying to keep on time. So maybe questions at the end of the session. Thank you.
An overview of Old System Land Surveys, adverse possession & possessory title, & some informative case studies
Tony Swallow, LPI-NSW
Our next speaker is Tony Swallow. He is a repeat presenter here. And we only just made it to get him because he is the Deputy Manager Old System Plans only until next Monday, when he becomes Plan & Title Adviser. Tony is going to give us an overview of Old System Surveys, adverse possession and possessory titles with some informative case studies. Please welcome Tony Swallow.
TONY SWALLOW
Good afternoon, and it’s great to be back here again to talk to you. It is always a pleasure coming out to Cumberland because it is such a professionally run seminar and as I said it is a pleasure to be part of it.
I have been asked to talk about Old System Land, its conversion, its’ definition. It is a fairly long topic and could talk for hours on it. We have had people in the office who have been there dealing solely with Old System Land for over 20 years and they are still coming up with scenarios that they haven't seen before. So what I am giving you today is just a very brief overview of it. We all come across problems with Old System Land as we deal with it, and at times it is a matter of working through because none of us have seen it before.
So to start with, what is Old System Land? All land in New South Wales which was granted before 1863, was granted under the Old System under the Common Law. And all land that was alienated before that and has not been converted as yet is still held under that Common Law. Land held at Common Law, Old System, suffers disadvantages and restrictions to the land held as Torrens Title. Old System Land attracts higher costs in conveyancing because of the complexity of the Title. Each transaction on Old System Land as you know, adds another title to the Deed to the Chain of Title. Also Old System Land is effected by resumption of adverse possession. And I will be talking about adverse possession a bit later on.
Under legislation Old System Land or even some Torrens Land (Torrens Land that is limited or qualified) cannot be used as a basis of a Strata or Community Development. Now there is no legal requirement for Old System Land transactions to be registered in the General Register. This is different to Torrens Title where all transactions are and by law must be registered. They are all registered on one document, the Title, so it makes searching a lot easier and a lot more cost effective. With Old System Land if we are not subdividing the whole of an Old System parcel there is no need to show residue. Old System Land may be subdivided by a plan or by a deed. Whereas Torrens Title land we need a plan to change the subdivision pattern. Since the introduction of Torrens Title there have been mechanisms in place to enable people to convert land from Old System to Torrens Title. Traditionally this has been done under Section 14 of the Real Property Act and it relies upon the lodgment of a Primary Application. Now this Primary Application also relies on a survey plan. The Application establishes the ownership and the plan that the boundaries of the land being converted. The resultant title to issue from a primary application will be a full Torrens Title. The application needs to be based on a good route of title. That’s a Title where a chain of deeds stretches back at least 30 years from a Deed of Value ie Sale or a Mortgage. And this forms a proof of ownership of the Title. The boundaries are supported by a Plan of Survey, generally not more than 12 years old which is examined by comparing both the documentary Title and the existing occupation. Now why 12 years? Because 12 years covers a minimum period under which a Claim by Adverse Possession can be made. Adverse Possession occurs where the land is held by occupation against a Documentary Title. With Old System Land this may be for either part of the whole of a Title. With Torrens Land if there was a possessary claim it must be for the whole of a parcel. You can't claim part of a Torrens Land by possession. The proof of possession is based on the Limitations Act 1969. Under this Act possession must be proven for a period of 30 years against the Crown and 12 years against other lands. This period was a shortened in 1971 from 60 years against the Crown and 20 years for other lands. And this amendment was not retrospective. So if we had a possessory claim against the Crown, where the possession commenced more than 30 years ago the owner would need to establish his claim and his proof of ownership with 60 years possession for that claim to be successful.
Now where Crown land has been set aside for a specific purpose or a use such as road, dedicated as a public purpose or a reserve from a Crown grant, adverse possession does not apply. A possessory claim is supported in two ways. Firstly by a plan which shows the age, nature and occupation as they exist on the land and secondly by a series of documentary evidence. The documentary evidence includes a list of the devolution of the possessory title from the date of the claim to the date of the application together with a declaration detailing the name and address of any person or persons who may have by documentary title a claim over the land, a search of the last documentary owner to date, a letter from Council setting out who has been assessed for rates and who has been paying the rates on the land, and declarations from the Applicant and several disinterested parties setting out the particulars of the occupation of the land. The declaration should cover such things as the Declarant’s age, their means of knowledge and circumstances of occupation use and possession of the land. The nature and time of improvements, any knowledge of claims adverse to the Applicant’s claim, any litigation over the land, any knowledge of any easements or restrictions affecting the land and whether the applicant or their predecessors have acknowledged title to the land or paid rent to any person for the land.
We will look at a claim for adverse possession. This claim came into us for land at Penrith. The base plan is a 1941 Plan and it shows Lots 5a and 16b, with Lot 16b having a side distance of 160ft or 48.77m. Now a new plan defining Lot 16b and part of Lot 5a as occupied was lodged together with the Primary Application. We see this plan in its registered form. There have been a few amendments to it. Now this plan claimed Lot 16b by Documentary Title and part of Lot 5a by adverse possession. And the heading clearly indicated this when the plan first was lodged. We will have a look at the boundary in question, which was here. The original plan defined a southern boundary by the position of a 40 year old paling fence which was 53.75m from Henry Street, which is in excess of 4.98m over deed and the original DP. This is the land being claimed by possession. So the occupation is 40 years old, old enough to justify a claim under adverse possession under Common Law. But by the position of the registered boundary you can see that this claim was not successful. To understand why the claim was denied we need to understand the history of the occupation from the information that was available in the declarations. Lots 5a and 16b were originally given to two sisters as wedding presents. The fence in question, the 40 year old paling fence was erected by mutual consent and the sister who owned 16b transferred her land in 1992 and it was further transferred in 1996 to the Applicant. The other sister, the owner of Lot 5a remained in possession of her land in 2001. The owner of Lot 5a had access to the land in her Documentary Title through a gate in that dividing fence. And because of that she had access over her land and the Applicant could not make a claim for sole use and possession of that land. So in this case the application was denied. You may notice on the plan that the new boundary is outside a new fence. This fence was erected after the plan was lodged and has come on as a plan through amendment. And you also notice that the distance on the side is 49.6 something and has actually increased over the original plan. This was due to the fact that both Henry and High Streets were aligned and both Lots benefited or gained some land out of that realignment.
These days most primary applications are accompanied by a fresh plan of survey but circumstances exist where a fresh plan of survey is not always required. These circumstances are: Where a Plan of Survey of less than 12 years exists and is in agreement with surrounding surveys; where a plan of survey is over 12 years old and the land is vacant and unfenced; and the claim being made is based on documentary title only. So he is not trying to claim anything by possession, just what is in his document and he can make it on a plan that is over 12 years old. Where the existing plan is over 12 years old and shows occupations and the adjoining owners consent to the positions of the boundaries and occupations as shown in that plan. Lastly, where there is a plan that is over 12 years old, can be a survey or a compiled plan, but it is in agreement with existing surveys that are less than 12 years old that surround it.
Now the introduction of Part 4a, section 28 of the Real Property Act saw the office take a different tact in the conversion process. Conversion would now be undertaken from deeds lodged for registration in the General Register and the process was transaction driven and was based on the description solely in one deed. Where the deed referred to a lot in a plan of sound survey base, or described that plan by metes and bounds description, we could issue a title. A Statement of Title Particulars was introduced and this statement covered the basics of the titling. It told us if there were any mortgages on the land. It told us of any other interests that were already on the land in the form of easements or restrictions.
Now when we issue a qualified title there may be several different cautions that can apply to the title and those cautions are dependent upon the deed that the title was converted from. If the deed was a deed for value, a sale or a mortgage, we put what we all a general caution on. But if not it could be from a gift or a bequest, then we would put a different caution on and a qualification period would not start until a deed for value came in. The scope of this process was widened in the 80’s with the introduction of Part 4b which allowed the Office to issue limited title. And these are for deeds that were only based on a description or where the plan that was referred to was greater than 12 years old or a compiled plan. So where we only had a deed description or where the deed description differed to that in the plan, the office would draw a compiled plan that was used for identification purposes only. And these plans reflect any anomalies in the deed so if there is missing distances or bearings or it is only described in a southerly direction, that is the way the Plan will look.
The limitation that goes on these titles clearly says that the boundaries are not examined by this office and have not been established by survey. The removal of a caution or limitations can be achieved in several ways. The first and most obvious being the lodgment of a primary application. The second being with a general caution. That caution lapses after 12 years but remains on the title until a request is received or until the next transaction is registered. The next one, if it is based on a normal qualification and has been a transfer for value, the caution may be removed after 6 years of that transfer. Another method of removing it would be the lodgment of a request and an official search and the official search goes through the devolution of the title and that would establish ownership. For limitations to be removed we need a plan of survey.
We will now look at a few examples. As set out in Hallmans ‘Legal Aspects of Boundary Surveying’, the hierarchy of boundary definition applies. Remember when we are dealing with Old System Land greater importance is placed on occupation do to the assumption of adverse possession. Also the status of the adjoining land must also be considered. As the effect of the occupations on those lands. Remembering that rural property land is not subject to Adverse Possession.
Our first example is for a delimitation of land at Condobolan. The new Plan redefines the land as Lot 10. The land to the north is full Torrens Title. We can see that on the plan that there is an old occupation running outside the boundary and then along the boundary. The surveyor has taken for Lot 10 PO distance on the west and he has a shortage on the east of 0.12m. Lot A is left with PO on the west and an excess of 0.12m. What the surveyor has done from the northern street has come down and left PO for the Real Property Land and he has taken his boundary by the Deed definition. As he has come down to the bend in the fence he has then taken the occupation as being the definition of the land. Because if that occupation is over in 12 years the owner has lost that strip of land through adverse possession. This does not mean that the owner of Lot 10 automatically gains that land. What happens is there is a hiatus formed between the two blocks of land and for the owner of Lot 10 to gain that land he must make application to have it, to gain it.
Next example is for land at Cooma and this Plan is currently unregistered. The Old System Land is mainly comprised in Lots 1 and 2 and little bit in Lot 3 and the remainder of Lot 3 being RP Land. The southern boundary of Lot 2 extends past are recent occupation, extends past by almost a 0.5 metre. And once again the land below is Torrens Title Land. In this case we need to look at that plan below and just see what we can find from that. Looking at the northern boundary we find it has been defined by an old paling fence. And this is all that the owner of Lot 1 could claim both by occupation and by deed. The plan also shows that there is an excess up to Tumut Street, the same excess. So in this case we would register the new plan in the form that it was lodged but we would give the owner of Lot 1 the opportunity to claim that land. We would ask for his consent to the boundary before we registered.
Our next example we look at the other situation. This is where an excess of land is not taken by the new plan. Here a new plan redefines as Lot 1. Its’ rear and side boundaries are defined by recent occupations. The earlier plans to the north DP569160 and DP88048, now both these plans redefine land in the Deed and only took land in their Deed. And they took their land and defined it coming south from Addison Road. The new plan similarly it redefines land in the Deed which takes land coming north from College Street. And it leaves a gap hiatus of 0.4m between the two plans. Now while this office encourages common boundary to be made and we don’t like seeing gaps made in the cadastre we cannot force any owners to take land outside their claim and outside their Deed. So that land will remain there between those two parcels of Torrens Land as Old System Land until someone claims it, by possession. In this case what should be shown? The surveyor should show the boundary of DP569160 so it is clearly indicated that it doesn’t form a common boundary and the adjoining information should be shown between the two Lots.
I will take this opportunity to talk quickly on party walls, especially as they effect land when they are shown on external boundaries. That was to be an Old System PA but it doesn’t matter whether it is an Old System or PA in this case or RP Land. Where we have party walls shown on external boundaries under section 88BB these cross easement can be created upon registration of the plan. Now the creation of these easements places both a burden and a benefit on their next door neighbours so we ask for their consent before we actually create those easements. The adjoining owner can sign the plan or send us a letter giving his consent to the position of the party walls. Or with Old System Land we can have an old official search completed which would prove that the Old System Land, the easements had been properly created and they have not been extinguished through union of tenement or through release. Of course an alternative if the party walls aren't to be created it can be shown as proposed and to be created at a later date pursuant to section 48 of the Real Property Act.
Now in cases involving adverse possession with unclear ownership of land that case before with the recent fence, we don’t know who has actually got title of that land through occupation. Both are over Deed so there is a bit of a grey area there to actually can claim it. The Registrar General may under sections 12 and 28 of the Real Property Act serve notice on the adjoining owners. This notice informs the adjoining owners of the intention to grant the application or to register the plan. Now the owners are supplied a copy of the Plan with the area of the boundary in question highlighted and they are also informed of what action they need to take if the claim or the boundaries to be disputed. The notice sets a time frame for action to take. Usually about 35 days but that can change or vary due to circumstance. In order to stop proceedings the owner may lodge a caveat against the Title or the Application. When the Caveat is lodged against a primary that Caveat will laps after 3 months. Caveats in general will lapse 21 days after the service of Notice of Intending Lapsing pursuant to Section 74 of the Rural Property Act. Or unless court proceedings are commenced within that time to establish the Caveator’s entitlements to the interest claimed. Alternatively an injunction against the issue of Certificate of Title may be obtained from the Supreme Court.
Now any person lodging a Caveat may be required by the applicant to show cause in the Supreme Court of why he or she should not be ordered to remove the Caveat. And any person lodging a Caveat without reasonable cause may be liable to pay compensation for any damage he has caused. The serving of such notice is not an action that is lightly undertaken by this Office. The applicant must convince the Office that his claim or position of the boundary can be justified and normally the Office asks the lodging party or the owners to supply consent before we send notice. But if that consent is not furnished then we ask the applicant to supply the name and address of the adjoining owner in the form of a Statutory Declaration and then we can send notice. But that is our last resort. We don’t like getting involved in neighbourhood disputes which can be. Some of these things are held up because the adjoining owners don’t like their neighbours or they don’t like the proposed development and we try to stay out of that as much as possible. But we also realise there is an obligation there for the owner of the land to have his land dealt with the way he wants to as well.
That brings me to the end of the presentation. Information Bulletin 35 is a guide for the preparation and lodging of a Primary Application and is available on our website (www.lpi.nsw.gov.au).
So thankyou very much for your time and I will be available to answer questions after the session.
Production and Business Developments within LPI-NSW
Barry Douse, Divisional Manager, Production and Business Development, LPI-NSW
Our final speaker today from Land & Property information New South Wales is last but not least. Barry Douse, the Divisional Manager, Production and Business Development. He is going to inform us about production and business developments within LPI New South Wales - would you please welcome Barry Douse.
BARRY DOUSE
Your Chairman very
kindly came to visit me yesterday to make sure that I really existed and
that I knew how long it took to get out here. And I was reminded of an
incident a few years ago when Paul Keating was travelling in the country
and his chauffeur driven car struck a pig and killed it. Paul Keating
said to the chauffeur well I’m the Prime Minister mate, we’d
better square off with the farmer. Go up the farmhouse and tell them what’s
happened. I’ll wait here in the car. So Keating is waiting an hour,
two hours, three hours, finally the chauffeur comes back looking a bit
worn out and bedraggled. Keating said what happened to you? He said well
I went to the house and told them the news and they threw a party. Keating
said what did you say to them? He said I just said I’m Paul Keating’s
chauffeur and I’ve killed the pig. Anyway I am here not to tell further
little stories like that but to talk to you about LPI’s new direction.
Of course like every good organisation we have got a vision, and we want to be the leading provider of land and property information for New South Wales and of course we deal with mapping, titling and valuation survey and related land administration and information services.
Products and services. Property information products and services, mapping and spatial information services which you will be well familiar with, registration services. We don’t just say land registration services because we are interested in moving into non land registration services as a business development strategy. If you register land you can do a lot of other registry work equally as well. And valuation services of course. And surveying services last but not least.
Our objectives. We wish to be able to provide authoritative information sets. We have an internal debate going as to what constitutes authoritative. Certainly we know it means that it is to do with standards and known standards, national standards and it is also to do with establishing a level of trust in the information that we are able to provide. And it also includes being able to provide a lot of information to industries about the tolerances that our data has. What degree of reliability and accuracy it has. Increasingly we are integrating our information and services and I will talk to you about a new product or service coming on the market very shortly in terms of integrated property inquiries. We are interested in providing accessible and cost effective service delivery and that usually means going more and more down the path of providing internet related information services, web based services and electronic delivery.
Customer driven. I think Paul Harcombe mentioned earlier that we do a lot of liaison with all of our customer groups and we have a special group for liaising with the surveying profession in terms of our information services, which meets on a quarterly basis.
Value for money service pricing. The pricing debate particularly for spatial information has been going on for a very long time and I think I will be able to say something a bit later in this presentation about how far we have got or how close I think we are to resolving that issue and the principles we are pursuing to resolve that issue. And better use of Government funding simply relates to our community service obligation payments and getting more for the money the Government is putting in CSO services including the provision of survey control infrastructure, survey services.
Strategies. Improving our capabilities and very heavy investment and information technology. Winning the support of our customers I think is an area which our liaison activities told us we needed to concentrate more on. We are doing quite a few good things. We are perhaps doing less than we should in terms of communicating to our customer groups what are initiatives were and how we could support those. And to that end we have built a business development team whose job is to maintain those relationships and Chris White, my colleague sitting there on the end is the Business Development Manager with responsibility for maintaining that liaison with the survey profession. Providing value to our customers, partners and stakeholders is about our internal initiatives to become more efficient.
In the first phase of LPI Development which I account for my - I came on board at the beginning of 2001, shortly after the General Manager Des Mooney was appointed, and since then we have carried out a full analysis of our business. We have worked out what our position in the world is and planned our services and products for the future. We have established a comprehensive investment program to meet our current and future needs.
In terms of LPI income it is important to see where we fit in the world in terms of our sources of income. LPI brings into the organisation about $120million a year and by far the biggest item of that is title and registration income, for the lodgment of plans, documents and information services relating to Title matters.
Valuations for the Office of State Revenue and for Local Authorities and certain miscellaneous matters brings in about $24 million. Community Service obligation payments from Government largely related to the activities which are funded through Bathurst and survey come to about $10million. And spatial information has a declining role for us in terms of income and is falling and has continued to fall over the last few years and is now approximately $2million including all licensing of digital data, DCDB, DTDB, hard copy map sales, aerial photography and the like. As LPI the sale of spatial information is much less important to us, as it was when Bathurst as LIC stood alone.
In terms of our future role we see ourselves as having the primary role of creating maintaining and providing access to authoritative primary data, so that’s for land and property information. We see ourselves as being essentially the provider of information infrastructure in the same way as other organisations maintain physical infrastructures such as roads. And we believe we in fact we are moving down the path of sourcing information from data partners. I know we have got some people here from Local Government and we shortly will be issuing a document, a draft document to Local Government inviting Local Government authorities to partner with us in being the provider of data on a reciprocal basis for certain information services in return. Likewise, it is likely we will be proposing to the survey profession that they may wish to or be able to participate in the provision of survey plans electronically for the update of the DCDB in the future. We have an increased emphasis in providing management and maintenance services and moving away from being vendors of data itself.
We have also made a very conscious decision to move away from being the developers of higher level value added products in our spatial area and we have taken the advice of our customers and stakeholders and focused back on the traditional role of maintaining the authoritative data sets rather than getting into competition with commercial interests in the development of products. And we will continue to develop online channels for sourcing and delivery of data and we have an ongoing role through the PSMA as a shareholder and supplier of data on a national basis.
Initiatives in Government. Our State Government partners are very important to us and we have got several major projects on foot at the moment. Firstly with the Department of Agriculture we are providing vital property information in their planning process. Part of a national planning process to combat the possible arrival of foot and mouth disease and other exotic diseases in Australia. Apparently foot and mouth which is supposed to be a disease which prospers in cold damp climates arrived in Malaysia last year. So it is not far away.
The bushfire emergency at the end of last year, beginning of this year highlighted for us our role in providing information and mapping for disaster response and post disaster management. Indeed we provided 10,000 hard copy maps for the emergency services during that bushfire period and provided a great deal of aerial photography and imagery for the management of the aftermath of those fires. And we are actively working with Sydney Water to develop a common cadastre between Sydney Water and ourselves which we would maintain and we expect that to be in its pilot phase by the end of this year.
A capital growth project. We have redeveloped our central register of restrictions and enhanced that and streamlined its operations and that is a system of course which is a single point of entry for the inquiries on Government interests in land and a number of Government agencies are party to that system. And on one inquiry that can be dealt with.
Electronic lodgment and automatic registration of dealings is continuing as a pilot project to investigate the feasibility of electronic lodgment. Electronic plan lodgment has already begun between ourselves and certain Government agencies in a pilot phase. The integrated property inquiry is web based application for inquiries which allows users to access property information via lot/plans, street address, property number or coordinates and on making the one inquiry you get a picture of the Lot in context and you are able to bring up valuation information, dimensions and Title information all through the single point of contact. A certain amount of information about the property on first inquiry is free and then if you wish to go further and purchase information on valuation and title you will be able to do that by putting in a credit card number and paying the required fee. And that should be on line within the next 3 months. We had some concerns about privacy which that sort of issue tends to come up frequently these days. We have had consultations with the Privacy Commissioner and he is reserving his judgment at the moment. We are expecting a clearance of that system within the next 3 or 4 weeks.
GeoCoded Urban and Rural Address System. A lovely title, which was given to this project mainly by a treasury which comes out as GURAS. Somebody suggested dropping the G which would’ve made it URAS and that was abandoned immediately so it stuck as GURAS. And this is probably the single most requested development of LPI from all of our customer groups. To have an authoritative GeoCoded street address, data set, which currently does not exist, and have that linked to an authoritative road centre line data set also.
Cadastral Records Directory, some of you may be aware of. The progress in scanning all the plans in the plan room at Queens Square, 63,000 of them, we have already built a system to hold the notations and the notations are now being captured electronically and will be available to be accessed electronically through the terminals in Queens Square. That process of scanning those 63,0000 paper reference maps will continue over the next 12 months at a pace of about 300 maps a day. And the quality on the scanned copy I must say is very impressive.
Spatial Maintenance Systems Project. This is really a project which is internal to LPI. We are replacing our genamap systems with ESRI Arc systems and products. But it is integral to us enhancing our capabilities to be able to deliver information electronically and indeed by the end of July certain topographical information will be available over the web free to air.
Common Land Cadastre Project I have mentioned and we are also redeveloping the Government Property register.
In terms of our priorities, I mentioned before, we are keen to reform our price structure and the principle we are pursuing there is to make information available, spatial information available where possible. Most spatial information regarding or relating to fundamental data sets on the basis of a cost of transfer and service. Which is the principle espoused in the draft, long awaited and much loved Draft Pricing and Access Policy of Government Information which I think was published over 2 years ago now. We don’t think that is likely to be endorsed by Government in the short term so we are proceeding by ourselves to implement a pricing structure which reflects the principles in that policy in any case.
Access. A lot of people have told us you have got some great information, you maintain some fantastic data sets, we know you do an awful lot of work in capturing and processing information. Make it available to us. You are very bad at getting it out. And our plan there is to do everything possible to make our information more accessible, more available. The message from our customer base again is we know you are not perfect we don’t expect you to be perfect, but some information is better than none. So don’t try and perfect everything before you make it available, publish it to us with the warnings of what the tolerances are, what the standards are and where the weaknesses are, and we’re taking heed of that message. Notwithstanding that, we are keen to improve the quality of our data and we get very clear messages from all sections and all industries about where the customers think the weaknesses are and where we need to do most improvement. And the DCDB is not the least of those let me tell you.
In terms of pricing, I have covered that. There was an item there which I have just skipped past which is copyright claim implications which is an ongoing matter for us with the surveying profession in terms of the intellectual property associated with the DCDB and we are hoping that will finally be resolved one way or the other. And may have an implication for the cost of our products if the cost of that paying royalties has to be built into the cost of the information.
In terms of quality, year after year it seems that there have been submissions going through from LPI and its predecessors to improve topographical and cadastral information and year after year it seems that they meet with a lack of success. We are taking another approach. The issue generally is with treasury, is who benefits from this improvement to cadastre and who benefits from this improvement to topographical information? And when the response comes back that it is everybody the treasury people really just lose it. There are no clear hooks that have been established. There have been studies done in Europe and Britain which show that spatial data infrastructure underpins not hundreds of millions, but billions of dollars worth of economic activity. And we are having another go by focusing on particular customer benefits and evaluating particular customer benefits and working out how much user groups will benefit from the improvement in quality to cadastre and Topo.
Unification of cadastres I touched on earlier and we are approaching certain Western Sydney Councils to be involved in a pilot of the single cadastre. And I should say that in the context of the single cadastre project we are going to be developing a proposed or planning layer where people can at an early stage, either through councils or through surveyors, put forward the proposed plan and get a proposed Lot DP number, proposed plan number at an early stage so everybody can work to the same number. And that will be available through LPI’s website. Professional accredited people can get into that website and will be able to pull down numbers and allocate those to proposed plans. And that proposed plan will be visible electronically.
Access initiatives, IPI I have mentioned. IPW: Information Property Warehouse phase 1 has been completed and other initiatives under the IPW umbrella are progressing such as cadastral records directory and the central register of restrictions and enhancements, replacement of SMS webgov is established. Internet delivery system, overnight updates, has been completed. GURAS we are going on with.
Thankyou.
MICHAEL PARKINSON:
We just have time for one quick question and we have to close.
Question
Where do you access
SCIMS and bring up split maps (can't hear) computer (can't hear) (no mic)
On the screen when you bring up the actual split map it shows (can't hear).
Answer
Yes we have some plans to enhance SCIMS and that includes a lot of searching facilities in our cadastral text. Go in by street address. It is all linked with the IPI and IPW but at this stage a few other things have got to be put in place before SCIMS will get a full development guernsey.
KEITH CADOGAN:
Today I believe that all of our session speakers have maintained that tradition I spoke of earlier in sustaining our interests by finishing on strong notes which have informed all of us. If you agree with me about this would you please join in with me now in thanking them for their presentations.
I will now call on our Group Chairman Michael Parkinson to make his seminar closing remarks.
MICHAEL PARKINSON:
I would now like to thank everyone here for attending in supporting what I am sure you will all agree has been a very successful informative day. I would also like to thank all our speakers who have given freely of their time to be here today.
At present there is a push by the Institution of Surveyors Australia and a number of Government agencies for the Institution to become part of the Spatial Sciences Coalition. Aside from the concerns of the Institution handing its assets over to what in funding this body and loss of control, many members have concerns that there is an undue emphasis on spatial data collection ultimately managed by others. One only has to look at some of the comments put up on the Cumberland Group’s discussion board on the website to see the level of concern out there. Through seminars such as this the Cumberland Group seeks to counter this trend and reinforce the traditional consulting role in planning engineering and project management that broadens the professional surveyor’s role in the land and property development field.
I would also like to thank the Committee for their work and expertise without which this seminar would not have taken place. Roy Lowe the Secretary, Gerard Junek our Treasurer, Mark Gordon Divisional Rep, Barry Yardley, Adrian Barden and Andrew Edwards and John Caddey. I would also like to thank my wife Jenny who keyed in all the registrations for today and made up all the name tags. I would like you all to give a round of applause for the Committee. Thanks.
Fresh ideas are always welcome and if anyone would like to participate on Committee please come and see me or send an email. Immediately after the seminar is the Happy Hour in the lobby out front so stay for a while and have a nice cold beer on us. At 7.30 we have the eminent speaker dinner with Chief Justice Barry O’Keefe who is a very entertaining speaker. Thank you again and we hope to see you all here again next year. Thank you.
THE ORGANISING COMMITTEE
