Digital lodgement of cadastral survey data in Victoria

Abstract

The current system of land registration has been in place for over 130 years and in that time very few changes have been made to it, despite substantial changes in society. Whilst this system does still fulfil its purpose of providing guarantee to title, an upgrade is necessary for several reasons. These include reducing the cost of the system; extending the applications and marketable uses of registered cadastral survey information; improving overall efficiencies of lodgement, registration, examination and use of cadastral survey information; and ensuring that the system can take full advantage of developing technology.

The development of a digital environment to manage land information, in particular, cadastral data, seems to be the most logical solution. The digital concept has already been embraced by many areas of the land information industry, however the lodgement of cadastral survey data is still basically a manual process. In the future it is possible that surveyors may lodge all plans to the local municipality, the Land Titles Office or even directly into a digital cadastral database in a digital format. This concept is known as digital lodgement and forms the basis of the paper.

This paper presents the results of a questionnaire sent to all consulting surveyors in Victoria regarding their views on digital lodgement of cadastral survey data. It also reviews responses from various Australian states on current initiatives towards the digital lodgement of cadastral data, and briefly outlines the main issues to be considered.