©stock.adobe.com/au/Kaspars Grinvalds
The NSW Government is hoping that a new digital system for survey plans will deliver $300 million in productivity savings for NSW, with property owners, buyers and sellers to benefit from a completely digital land titles system.
Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government, Victor Dominello, said the new system followed the successful move to digitise the conveyancing process in October 2021, which reduced costs, saved time and eliminated most risks associated with human error.
“Survey plans have defined land boundaries in NSW for more than 200 years and despite surveyors using the latest measurement technology, the creation and registration of survey plans tends to go back to a paper-based process,” Mr Dominello said.
“We are now taking steps to move survey plans online and mandate 100% online lodging with the new digital system NSW Land Registry Services Connect by the second half of 2023.
“This is the final piece in the puzzle to make it an end-to-end paperless process, improving the quality of survey plans and enabling approvals to be faster.
Full details of the development can be found on the NSW Office of the Registrar General’s website.
NSW Land Registry Services says it fully supports the move and “is committed to delivering infrastructure to support this pivotal stage of the Digital Survey Plans reform for industry”.
The agency says it is working on the latest instalment of NSW LRS Connect which will streamline the plan lodgement process for customers.
That latest instalment will go live in early 2023 following a controlled test launch with specific surveying firms in late 2022. It will then be open to other industry stakeholders such as legal practitioners and conveyancers in 2023.
There will be a 12-month transition period from the full launch of NSW LRS Connect in 2023, for any remaining paper lodgements to be provided to the NSW LRS Lodgment Office.
At the end of the transition period, all plans will have to be digitally prepared and lodged through NSW LRS Connect. A Registered Surveyor will be required to create a plan workspace within NSW LRS Connect so that they or another linked Plan Workspace Contributor can complete the lodgement online through NSW LRS Connect.
The initial 12-month transition period will allow three plan lodgement options:
- Online: Admin and Section 88B Instrument (if required) will be created using the Online Digital Form Builder. Survey Certificates endorsed within NSW LRS Connect and all other documents will be uploaded and lodged online via NSW LRS Connect. This will be the only option for new plans once the mandate takes full effect.
- Partial Online: Admin and Section 88B Instrument (if required) will be created offline and the Survey Certificate will also be completed offline. Forms and all other documents will then be uploaded and lodged online via NSW LRS Connect. Once the 12-month transition period is completed, this will only be an option for plans signed by the Registered Surveyor before the end of the transition.
- Offline: Documents created manually and provided to the NSW LRS Lodgment Office in paper form will be accepted only until the end of the initial 12-month transition period.
There will be a six-month window for industry to provide feedback on necessary enhancements to be implemented prior to the mandate taking effect.
Registered Surveyors can start using digital forms by signing up to the initial release of NSW LRS Connect.
Minister Dominello said that the new system is expected to save around $10 million per year over the next three decades by reducing associated holding costs for the delivery of new land parcels and strata lots and reducing the time and costs spent on rectifying errors on survey plans.
The reform has been aided by advice from an Industry Consultative Committee, which includes the Association of Consulting Surveyors NSW, Institution of Surveyors NSW, Australian Institute of Conveyancers NSW, Law Society of NSW, NSW Land Registry Services and relevant local and state government entities.
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