LINZ News
Survey Report Template working well
Surveyors are already starting to benefit from the rollout of the first stage of the Survey Handbook project, a major undertaking initiated to help surveyors better understand compliance requirements and reduce the requisition rate.
Two key changes from this project came into effect during November. The first was a new survey report template developed by a working party consisting of LINZ staff and practising surveyors. It makes compliance better, faster, and cheaper by more clearly defining the information required – and explaining why compliance is important.
The new template streamlines the reporting process for both paper and e-surveys. The template has been designed to be easy to use and adapt. Surveyors can use the form directly from the Internet or use the template to customise their own report. Both options will help surveyors to report consistently and consider the key topics to be covered.
The template and a background document providing more detail is on the LINZ website and surveyors can use the new template immediately.
Adoption of the survey report template will deliver positive benefits to both LINZ and the survey profession through reducing the number of requisitions and the costs associated with those requisitions, particularly on administrative items. To encourage its use, LINZ is waiving the requisition/resubmission fee (until June 2005) for those correctly using the template during the implementation period.
The second change currently being introduced into all LINZ Processing Centres is a risk-based process that will see LINZ survey staff accepting plans wherever possible.
The new acceptance process considers the whole data set and requisitions will be issued for high-risk errors or omissions only. As a result, minor errors and omissions that may have previously been picked up by LINZ staff will no longer be requisitioned. Surveyors will need to appreciate this change of focus and adjust their practise accordingly.
LINZ's adoption of an optimal regulation approach recognises that the responsibility for complying with the survey rules and ultimately the quality of surveys rests with surveyors. It's likely that over time surveyors will begin to see surveys in Landonline that do contain low risk errors and omissions. However, comprehensive analysis shows this will have no adverse impact on the Landonline database. Additionally, LINZ will monitor the new template and the new process closely and will conduct a post-implementation review in April 2005.
Landonline
DC Loader wizard update
LINZ is making minor changes to the Landonline Certificate Policy and the Digital Certificate User Obligations so we can introduce the new DC Loader wizard in late January 2005.
As Landwrap reported in October, the DC Loader wizard makes the process for obtaining or renewing your Digital Certificate simpler and faster.
To offer you this faster download process, LINZ has made some minor wording changes to sections two and six of the policy and sections one and six of the user obligations, and we're giving you six weeks notice before we launch in the wizard.
A summary of the changes to the Landonline Certificate Policy are:
[Paragraph 2.1.4.iii] Subscriber Obligations
Responsible for key generation through the Land Information New Zealand Approved cryptographic module and on-line acceptance of their Certificate Authority–signed Digital Certificate as per the Land Information New Zealand Registration Process.
[Paragraph 6.1.1] Key Pair Generation
Each prospective Subscriber or other entity must initiate the generation of their own key pair, using a key type and length of at least RSA 1024.
[Paragraph 6.1.3] Public Key Delivery to Digital Certificate Issuer
The Subscriber's public key will be automatically delivered to the Certificate Authority at the time the Subscriber enters the activation data into their Digital Certificate Installation application…
[Paragraph 6.1.6] Hardware/Software Key Generation
Subscribers will use software key generation technology through their Digital Certificate Installation application and use their hard disks for storage of their keys and Digital Certificates.
[Paragraph 6.2] Private Key Protection
Each Subscriber applicant shall securely generate their own key pair, using their cryptographic module Digital Certificate Installation application, and shall take all necessary precautions to prevent its loss, disclosure, modification, unauthorised use or other compromise.
A summary of the changes to the Digital Certificate User Obligations are:
General
1. Upon an Applicant being confirmed as a Subscriber then he or she must:
1.1 generate a Key Pair using a LINZ approved Digital Certificate Installation application;
Renewal, Revocation and Compromise
6. On the renewal of any Certificate, the Subscriber must:
1. generate a new Key Pair using a LINZ approved Digital Certificate Installation application;
- Read the updated Landonline Certificate Policy (pdf).
- Read the updated Digital Certificate User Obligations. (pdf)
e-survey training a roaring success
The LINZ sponsored e-survey training provided by Cadastre Ltd has been a great success, says Patrick Grant, LINZ's e-survey Training Coordinator.
"We've had a huge response to the call for registrations for training. During October and November, Cadastre visited 89 firms at which 208 people were trained,” says Patrick. “We've also had a very positive response from the people who have been trained and that's led to a significant increase in e-survey lodgement. In fact, e-survey lodgements increased to 11% of total surveys lodged from 6% during the two-month training period."
When LINZ's sponsorship of the training ends, a commercial training capability will be available in the market, of which Cadastre will be one of the providers. If you're interested in receiving e-survey training next year, you can complete the registration form on Cadastre's website and Neil Pullar will contact you.
If you do book in for training, the correct software will need to be installed onto a PC. You will also need to have completed the computer-based training before the trainer arrives. You will also need software that can create the correct 'supporting document' file formats.
To get the best out of the training, ensure the selected people in your firm have the right Landonline profiles and privileges assigned to them so they can access Landonline screens to complete an e-survey. It's also advisable to reserve a simple survey for this training.
For more information about the training, email Neil Pullar at npullar@cadastre.co.nz.
More specialist staff to answer your e-survey questions
LINZ has now trained more staff to answer your e-survey questions on our 0800 665 463 user support phone number.
Five e-survey experts are now on hand between 7am and 5pm weekdays to answer your calls.
"LINZ has seen an increase in 0800 calls on e-survey as more surveyors begin e-lodgement," says Patrick Grant, coordinator of LINZ's team of e-surveyexperts. "We've ramped up our 0800 support to ensure that when you ring us, you'll get through first time to someone who can help with your issue."
Feedback on the increased support has been great so far. Patrick says that to earn that feedback, LINZ concentrated on getting the new e-survey staff to look at e-lodgement from the surveyor's viewpoint. "An example is in the week-long training, we looked at the survey capture process from your point of view – we're making sure we understand how you capture data in the field and then work in Landonline."
The new experts are used to dealing with the high volume of calls – an average of 140 calls a week, ranging from a quick four-minute call through to over three hours.
"Give us a call between 7am and 5pm on weekdays," Patrick says. "Whether you've got a quick question or an issue you want us to shadow you through, we're geared up to help you get the best out of e-survey."
New practise tool launched to bridge the "Knowing-Doing" gap in e-dealing
LINZ's new online "practise tool" will help customers who don't use their new-found e-dealing knowledge straight away. When a delay occurs after receiving training, it's easy to forget some of the steps, or perhaps not get around to carrying out an e-dealing.
To help customers remember the main steps, LINZ has developed the first in a series of Online e-dealing Practise tutorials. These tutorials aim to help conveyancing professionals gain familiarity and confidence with e-dealing instruments prior to doing a "live" dealing.
The first tutorial is how to discharge a mortgage. Future tutorials will cover all the e-dealing instruments and major steps including mortgage, transfer, and certify and sign.
You can choose to 'walk through' or 'practise' within the tool. 'Walk through' gives you an overview of how the instrument works and 'practise' encourages you to input prescribed data and follow the interactive, easy step-by-step process.
The Online e-dealing Practise tutorials will also be great for those wishing to train other staff in their firm – as well as those needing a refresher on how the application works. Of course the best thing to do post-training is to log into Landonline the next day and lodge an instrument. But if that can't happen for one reason or another, this will be the next best thing to seeing those LINZ trainers all over again!
The discharge of mortgage tutorial is ready to use now. Keep reading Landwrap for updates on the launch of other tutorials.
LandXML formatting eases the exchange of data
Surveyors – how much time do you spend typing data into Landonline?
LINZ has taken part in the development of LandXML, an industry-driven XML format that eases the exchange of data during the land planning, civil engineering and land survey processes.
Developed in consultation with software developers, vendors and the civil engineering and surveying industries, LandXML incorporates the data elements required by Landonline.
"Surveyors can extract approved survey data from Landonline as an XML file to use in your survey software," says Joanne Head, Business Analyst at LINZ. "XML is a simple mark-up language that can be used to store and transfer information between parties.
"The LandXML schema elements and attributes included in the extracted file are recognised and allow the data to be edited in your software. Then you can create an XML file for the new survey and import it into Landonline."
All this means you spend less time typing in data into Landonline fields – using XML-compliant survey software amounts to significant time savings because the survey software and Landonline can automatically populate the data.
"Depending on the software you're using, you'll still need to do some editing," Joanne says. "The LandXML schema doesn't map to every field in Landonline. But, as an example, I used XML files for testing the latest Landonline release. Through importing an XML file, I cut down the time for entering data from an hour to five minutes."
LINZ has been working with software developers to ensure they are creating compliant files and making full use of all the elements in LandXML.
Joanne recommends you talk to your software vendor about using LandXML. Follow the LandXML link for more detailed information.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Landwrap wishes you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Just a reminder that Landonline will be available to external users until 7pm on Friday 24 December and will be available again in the New Year from 7am on Wednesday 5 January 2005.
The 0800 ONLINE support closes at 7pm on 24 December and will be available again in the New Year from 7am on 5 January.
LINZ Processing Centres close for business at 4pm on Friday 24 December and will re-open at 9am on Wednesday 5 January 2005.
Landwrap will take a break in January – the first edition for 2005 will be out late February.
Processing
Land professional co-operation needed
When preparing a subdivision project for lodgement with LINZ, all the land professionals acting for the landowner need to work closely together, particularly when easements are involved.
A significant cause of delays in depositing many plans and issuing new titles is the ‘I thought you were dealing with it' situation. The surveyor assumes that easements that are no longer required will be surrendered and does not show them on the plan face.
The LINZ survey team, following the surveyor's assumption that these easements will be surrendered, approves the plan as it is “Correct as to Survey”.
However, the conveyancer or solicitor preparing the OCT dealing decides not to surrender the easements – perhaps an affected neighbour is difficult to contact – or just difficult. They then lodge the dealing assuming the existing easement is still shown on the plan. The LINZ titles team then reject the dealing as the plan cannot be deposited without the easement being surrendered or being shown on the plan face.
The land professionals involved are then often faced with a difficult decision before the error can be resolved. Should the surveyor lodge a whole new plan showing the required easement and meet the cost of the draughting and lodgement fees? Or should the conveyancer go to the trouble of convincing the neighbour to consent to the surrender of the easement?
The best option is to avoid this situation in the first place by creating a clear understanding between the landowner and all the land professionals working for them before anything is lodged at LINZ.
Plan presentation for e-surveys
The created plan graphic of an e-survey is a visual representation of the authoritative digital survey data so does not need to be kept exactly to scale. By default the diagrams are displayed to a scale but tools are provided to allow a user to move data to avoid text collisions and make the end product readable.
Minor movements of mark symbols, using the 'c' icon on the Diagram Layout screens, can help clarify the relationship between marks and the boundary etc without needing to create too many diagrams. This will also help keep the number of sheets required to display the survey data to a minimum.
The emphasis on retaining relative positions to make the plans visually correct do, however, need to be kept in mind when moving the mark symbols, labels and lines.
Global Positioning System (GPS) e-surveys
Please note: As at July 2007, this article has been partly superceded by subsequent articles: GPS and Cadastral Surveys - Surveyor-General's Update (Nov/Dec 2005) and GPS data - including in cadastral survey datasets (October 2006).
Plan graphics for e-surveys must comply with the Surveyor-General's Rules. Where the cadastral survey has been undertaken using GPS, all check observations do not need to be shown on the 'face of the plan' where any one of the ties is within the allowable limits of a traverse or witness mark. The ‘redundant' observations can be hidden on the Digital Survey Plan Diagram sheets to minimise clutter.
All the data, including the check observations, needs to be captured and contained in the Marks and Observations Report. The captured observations will also display in the spatial view and in the network when the e-survey is approved.
The survey report should contain an explanation of what observations are on the 'face of the plan' and what are in the Marks and Observations Report to ensure that requisitions aren't created unnecessarily.
Hot Topics
This month's Hot Topics:
Do you need advice on searching for a CT reference to a parcel that does not have its 'Survey Appellation' linked to the title?
Landonline has both a Survey Appellation and a Legal Description for each parcel. In the majority of cases the two are the same and are 'linked' together. However, where a title includes either multiple parcels or part parcels, it's linked to the Legal Description only. Searching for a title reference using the Survey Appellation may not return a result. Also if you spatially select the parcel and select Searches, then Map Utilities – Add to Tree – Related Title(s), you will get a message advising that there are no related titles to the selected parcel(s). LINZ is over time working towards linking all parcels with their titles.
In the meantime, to overcome this you need to undertake the following steps:
- In Searches select 'Search – Title'.
- In the Title search screen click the 'Search' button adjacent to the 'Appellation' field to bring up the CCL_S03 – 'Search Appellation' screen.
- Select the Land District of the parcel being searched from the dropdown menu, enter the Legal description of the parcel, click the 'Part' field if the description is a part parcel.
- Click 'search now'. In the results screen, take the bottom scroll bar and scroll to the right, take the side scroll bar and scroll down. You are looking for 'Parcel IDs' with six digits. These are the title IDs. Note that a seven figure number is the Survey Appellation and does not have a title reference associated to it.
- Highlight one of the six digit numbers and click ‘select' to populate the appellation field on the search screen.
- Click 'search now' and the required CT will be displayed in the Search Result screen.
- Click 'select' to put the title reference in the Searches tree. You may notice that the Search Results displays the multi-parcel Legal Description to which the title reference is associated.
- Repeat until finished.
February Landwrap will include tips on 'Searches screens'.
Hot topics – the best from the past
In response to customer requests for a compilation of 'hot topics' from past Landonline newsletters, we've put together tips on e-dealing and e-survey as well as some general advice to help you get the most out of Landonline. These tips will also be incorporated in the appropriate FAQs some time soon.
Regulatory
Discharge of Mortgage by e-dealing
Landonline caters for the electronic discharge of a mortgage, or other charge, and the withdrawal of caveats and statutory charges, either independently, or as part of a dealing involving a transfer and new mortgage.
Where a vendor's solicitor is 'e-dealing capable' but the purchaser's solicitor is not, cases have arisen where the latter has opposed an 'e-discharge' and required a paper discharge to be provided on settlement.
Guideline Q of the New Zealand Law Society's Guidelines for the use of Landonline for an Electronic Transaction (e-dealing) is clear that, “where this occurs, the vendor's lawyer shall be entitled to effect registration of the Discharge(s) by e-dealing, independently of other paper based instruments such as the Transfer.”
Electronic lodgement saves costs as the lodgement fee is $21 as opposed to $50 for a paper lodgement (plus the disbursements associated with lodging a paper application).
The New Zealand Law Society's Land Titles Committee (Property Law Section's Email Bulletin 15 October 2004) strongly recommends that vendor's solicitors who are 'e-dealing capable' adopt the practise in all cases.
Property Law Section members can find the email bulletins under Papers and Publications on the Property Lawyers' website. Non-members should contact Kim Oelofse at the New Zealand Law Society for a copy of the Email Bulletin mentioned above.
Registrar's Caveats and e-dealings
Section 211(d) of the Land Transfer Act 1952 (LTA) empowers the Registrar-General of Land to enter caveats of his own volition in certain circumstances. This occasionally occurs where fraud or improper dealing is alleged or where the land is subject to a particular restriction that the Registrar is obliged to enforce. Such caveats cannot be removed via the e-dealing system.
In addition, the lapsing procedures of LTA sections 145 and 145A do not apply to Registrar's caveats, so someone applying to lodge a dealing cannot rely on those provisions to provide a means of clearing the caveat.
In these circumstances, to enable an e-dealing (or, for that matter, a paper based transaction) to proceed, a prior request must be made to the Registrar-General of Land to have the caveat cleared from the title.
Such requests should be logged with LINZ via the Landonline Customer Support number 0800 665 463.
Landwrap
Landwrap is the authoritative news and information source for survey and title customers.
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