The Registrar General’s Guidelines (“Guidelines”) are a set of publicly available guidance documents issued by the Registrar-General which govern the manner in which the land titling and registration registers are to be maintained and services are to be performed by NSW LRS.

The Guidelines assist in the preparation of deposited plans for lodgment at NSW LRS to help reduce delays in the examination process.

They set out information needed by surveyors, solicitors and others in the preparation of deposited plans and associated instruments. These Guidelines may also be relevant to strata schemes and community scheme plans which have their own specific Guidelines.

Introduction

Three land titling systems currently exist in New South Wales:

• Torrens Title (being the majority of privately owned land)

• Old System Title (being those lands granted before 1863 and not yet converted to Torrens Title) and

• Crown Title (being those lands held in the name of the State of New South Wales for which a folio of the Register has not yet been created).

It is a basic principle of the Torrens Title system that every current parcel be based on a plan of survey that defines its boundaries. Similarly, any parcel of Old System or Crown Title intended to be converted to Torrens Title must also be based on a suitable plan upon which a folio of the Torrens Register may be created.  

Consequently, whenever it is intended to create a new parcel or redefine an existing parcel of land, a new plan depicting the new boundaries must be prepared for lodgment and registration in NSW LRS.
Depending on the purpose of the plan, it will be lodged as:

• a deposited plan

• a strata plan

• a community plan or

• an annexure to a dealing (in these instances, the plan must comply with the Lodgment Rules).

Legislation base for deposited plans

All NSW legislation and Commonwealth legislation can be accessed at www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/ and www.legislation.gov.au/ respectively.

Legislation relevant to plans

It is the responsibility of the Registrar General to ensure that plans and associated documents comply with the requirements set out in legislation. The most relevant legislation to the plan process includes, but is not limited, to the following NSW Acts and their associated regulations:

• Surveying and Spatial Information Act 2002
• Conveyancing Act 1919
• Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979
• Real Property Act 1900
• Roads Act 1993
• Local Government Act 1993
• Strata Schemes Development Act 2015
• Community Land Development Act 1989

Lodgment Rules