News
Dunedin records on the move
Records held at LINZ's Dunedin reading room are currently being moved to Archives New Zealand's Dunedin office at 556 George Street, along with some historical registers and the earliest Roll Plans. This move is scheduled to be completed by 1 November.
While the records are being relocated, the Deeds indexes, other indexes and searching aids will be digitised, meaning that there will be periods of time where many of the items (particularly indexes) are unavailable. We are working with Archives New Zealand during the next few months to determine when we will be able to make the images available to our customers online.
In addition, all Surveyors Field Books, Legalisation cards and Traverse records for Otago and Southland will be transferred to LINZ's Christchurch Processing Centre in November. Original plans for Otago and Southland will be transferred to an off-site provider in Christchurch.
The moves are part of LINZ's broader strategy to ensure paper records throughout the country are appropriately stored and preserved, and remain accessible to the public over the long term.
This means there will be limited access to records as items are checked, packaged and reshelved. Please ensure you plan any land records-related research you are doing around the dates outlined in the fact sheet of scheduled move dates (PDF 270KB).
Viewing and ordering copies of records
Records transferred to Archives New Zealand can be viewed free of charge. Copies of records are available for a charge, subject to conditions. Lists of the records will eventually be available on Archway, Archives New Zealand's online catalogue.
LINZ is retaining custody of records still needed to conduct its business as well as some of the more specialist archival records. See the LINZ website for more information on LINZ's paper records, including record locations and access, or contact Customer Support on 0800 665 463.
Landonline
Improving our geospatial information
LINZ has a major project underway to improve its geospatial information.
"Improving our spatial information not only benefits our customers, but also New Zealand as a whole," says Jan Pierce, General Manager Customer Services.
The spatial parcel improvement project will improve the accuracy of the coordinates in the cadastre by ensuring that boundaries in rural areas more accurately match the legal position.
This project will initially focus on improving the quality of data in urban and intensive rural areas, where accuracy currently ranges from 1m to 100m. The aim is to have 95% of coordinates in the upgraded areas accurate to better than 2m.
The survey-accurate digital cadastre (SDC), which covers 70% of the parcels and 50% of the boundary points in New Zealand's cadastre, is accurate to at least 20cm (most of these are in urban areas).
"Because it's not possible to upgrade the entire cadastre in the two-year timeframe, we're focussing on extending the SDC into areas where the benefit of high-accuracy data will be greatest," says Jan.
"This has involved extensive analysis of the current accuracy of our rural data, as well as consideration of feedback from a range of users of cadastral data, including surveyors, local authorities, GIS companies and the general public."
Improving data quality for the rural cadastre will enable wider and more confident application of this information, says Jan.
"Our work will increase the availability of high-accuracy digital cadastral data, and enable organisations using it to concentrate on innovative spatial processing products and services such as three dimensional time-lapse modelling."
Below are areas where the spatial parcel improvement work is currently underway.
"Customers may already be noticing improvements to Landonline," says Jan. "As areas identified for upgrade are completed, the corrected data is loaded into Landonline and made available to external users."
More information on the spatial parcel improvement project is available on the LINZ website.
Landonline fees to incorporate GST increase from October
As announced in the Government's Budget on 20 May, GST is increasing to 15% on 1 October 2010. This means that all government fees, including Landonline fees, will incorporate the GST increase from that date.
We were unable to take this rise in GST into consideration before implementation of the 1 July survey and title fee changes as these were gazetted on 6 May, prior to the Budget announcement.
The 15% GST-inclusive fees are not rounded as this would have required a legislative change and there was insufficient time to undertake such a change prior to 1 October. LINZ will be monitoring the property market over the next year, and if required, a further fees review will take place. Fees would then be rounded as part of this review process.
A new fees schedule has been added to this website, and an extra column added to the Table of fees with the GST changes.
If you have any queries, please call Customer Support on 0800 665 463, or send an email to customersupport@linz.govt.nz.
Confirmation emails have been streamlined
In response to customer feedback, we have streamlined the confirmation emails customers receive when submitting web forms, or when we are revoking or reissuing digital certificates.
The following emails will no longer be sent:
- Digital certificate about to expire – 21 day notification (customers will only receive the 28 day warning and the expired email)
- Add additional user confirmation
- Remove user confirmation
- Change user details confirmation
- Reissue a digital certificate confirmation
- Revoke a digital certificate confirmation
In addition, the proof of identity expiry email has been amended to now read 'Your POI has expired' rather than 'Your POI is about to expire'.
If you have any queries, please call Customer Support on 0800 665 463, or send an email to customersupport@linz.govt.nz.
Procedure for requesting a credit on a Landonline account
LINZ has a standard procedure for customers requesting a credit, for instance following incorrect charges to an invoice, printing problems, or incorrect digital certificate charges.
The process for requesting a credit follows.
If you've received an incorrect invoice
- Circle item and dollar amount on the invoice, and write on the invoice the reason for the credit.
- If there is more than one item, total the amount to be credited, write this on the invoice and also add the reason for the credit.
- Scan and email or fax the invoice to LINZ (details below).
If you've received a fees report, but no invoice
- Circle the duplicates on the fees report.
- Scan the document.
- Write a brief explanation of the reason for the credit request in the title field of an email, attach the scanned document to the email and send it to LINZ.
You can email your credit request to customersupport@linz.govt.nz, or fax it to 04 460 0161.
The procedure for requesting a credit on a Landonline account fact sheet is also available on the LINZ website.
Regulatory News
Adopted traverses do not need to comply with accuracy requirements
A new Ruling LINZR65312 exempts most adopted non-boundary marks from having to meet the accuracy standards in rule 3.1(b). Poor quality adoptions, such as very old centreline traverses, have been failing the related validation tests in Landonline and causing problems for surveyors. This Ruling means that those adopted vectors can be included in a CSD and not breach the standards.
The exemption does not apply to adopted cadastral survey network marks. Rule 4.2 requires connection to cadastral survey network marks where the specified distance criteria are met. The accuracy standard in rule 3.1(b) continues to apply to that connection, even where the connection includes adopted vectors. If such adoptions are not sufficiently accurate, an alternative connection may be required.
The exemption does not affect the accuracy standards between adopted boundary points, which continue to apply.
The validation tests in Landonline will be changed so that these marks will no longer be tested for compliance with this standard.
In the meantime, pre-validation reports of adopted non-boundary marks that fail the relative accuracy test for rule 3.1(b) and are covered by this exemption can be ignored. Any such marks are listed under the heading Rule 3.1(b): Relative accuracy between non-boundary marks including adopted marks. Note that some listed failures may be between new, old and adopted cadastral survey network marks, to which the exemption does not apply.
However, surveyors should still consider marks that fail the misclose test for rule 3.1(b). Any such marks are listed under the heading Rule 3.7 and Rule 3.1(b): Misclose of obs between all new and old non-boundary marks including adopted marks.
As with the relative accuracy test, some listed failures may be between new, old and adopted cadastral survey network marks, to which the exemption does not apply. Even where the exemption does apply, a failure indicates that the captured vectors to affected points do not fit very well. While this may be expected, such as in the case of a very old traverse, it may also indicate a capture error. It would be helpful to include an explanation of the accepted failures in the Survey Report.
Boundary Reinstatement and Monumentation CSDs
Information on when to use Full Boundary Reinstatement CSD or a Monumentation CSD has been published on the LINZ website.
For an explanation of the different requirements for each case, refer to Boundary Reinstatement Surveys and Monumentation CSDs.
