LINZ News

LINZ takes the DC load off

As promised, LINZ has launched the new DC Loader wizard – installation of your Digital Certificate will now take fewer than 10 steps and less than 10 minutes. You need to download a Digital Certificate to use Landonline, and it must be renewed yearly. It's your digital signature, guaranteeing the security of your transactions, the register and the cadastre.

LINZ heard your feedback on the old process for downloading Digital Certificates – it was too complicated and took far too long. We have taken most of the steps and time out of that process. "The Digital Certificate remains as secure as ever," says Sharon Cottrell, LINZ General Manager for Customer Services. "The wizard merely automates many of the steps and simplifies your role in the download."

Lawyers and surveyors who kindly tested the wizard for us found the download a five-minute job. Richard Schmidt, an associate in Kensington Swan's Commercial Property Team, agrees that the old download was time-consuming and complicated. "Compared to that, the new loader wizard is far quicker, far simpler and far less stressful."

According to Director of Survey and Planning at Spencer Holmes, Hudson Moody, "It's 10 times better. The load takes less than five minutes."

Let the wizard do the work

New users, people annually renewing their DCs, and those moving their DCs to another computer, can now benefit from using the DC Loader wizard. Let it do the work.

To get hold of the wizard, visit the Landonline website and click on homepage link to the new DC Loader wizard.

Alternatively, go to the Digital Certificates Instructions page.

As always, if you have any questions, please call LINZ on 0800 ONLINE (0800 665 463).

The stakeholder channels connecting you to LINZ

Richard Cross, partner in Napier law firm Willis Toomey Robinson, is a man kept busy not just by his practice, but by his role as a stakeholder representative for property lawyers with LINZ.

"I'm very much a conduit to LINZ," Richard says. "As a member of the NZLS Property Law Section's Land Titles Committee, I constantly interact with LINZ at various levels. My role is to ensure practitioners' issues and ideas are actioned where possible by the Committee, or brought up efficiently with LINZ."

Of course, you can write, email or call LINZ directly at any time if you have an issue or idea you'd like to discuss. "Your daily contact not only helps us improve our services," says Sharon Cottrell, General Manager for Customer Services, "but more strategically we can track trends, and keep ahead of your needs at our formal advisory and relationship meetings."

These meetings include the Survey and Titles Advisory Committee (Richard's one of the members), a group made of LINZ management and representatives from the Law Society, the Institute of Surveyors, and an independent business advisor. The Committee meets regularly to review the success of the Landonline service, and identifies new initiatives and directions for LINZ to focus on.

LINZ and our stakeholder groups also ensure that we’re meeting customer needs at:

• Quarterly meetings between the executives of stakeholder groups and LINZ to share views and resources towards achieving our collective goals.
• The twice-yearly prioritisation efforts for Landonline's development. This is where LINZ sits down with Landonline users nominated by the Law Society and Institute of Surveyors to identify the 'must have', 'nice to have' and 'not necessary' system changes for Landonline.

One other recent development Sharon's excited about is the appointment of Duncan Terris as a part-time e-dealing consultant at the Law Society. Duncan is there to complement LINZ's 0800, online, on-location training and web support to law firms. He's there to assist firms making the transition to e-dealing and will provide practical advice to assist with professional issues involved with property transactions when they are undertaken electronically.

"Duncan will further help LINZ enhance our responsiveness to e-dealing customers," Sharon says.

Landonline

Auckland e-dealing events coming up

If you work for a law firm in Auckland, keep an eye out for your LINZ e-dealing invitation. LINZ will take you through e-dealing and the latest developments in Landonline services and support.

Following our February event for Whangarei practitioners, LINZ's CE Brendan Boyle and his team are keen to show you e-dealing and discuss any questions you have about making the move to electronic lodgement. We'll cover workflow guidance, which helps your firm adapt your particular processes to the e-dealing environment.

Our training co-ordinator will be on-hand to discuss and book the training your firm needs to help you start e-dealing with confidence.

LINZ's General Manager for Customer Services, Sharon Cottrell says, "The Auckland market is obviously different in size and complexity from other trading communities in New Zealand. Our aim is to meet you and discuss Landonline electronic lodgement/e-dealing with you and the firms you deal with. Then, we're available to train you and your colleagues at your firm, and provide guidance and ongoing support so you can embed e-dealing into everyday business.

"It's an approach that has worked well for us in other centres. For example, the Christchurch trading community has really picked up the pace. We're keen to help Auckland catch up with other trading communities around New Zealand and really maximise the benefits of electronic lodgement with e-dealing."

LINZ will host the events in the wider Auckland area from March through to June. You will be able to book your training at the events.

The new online e-dealing practise tool is ready for you!

Designed to bridge the 'knowing-doing' gap, LINZ's new online practise tool will help you become more confident using e-dealing. It's easy to forget some of the steps if there's a delay between receiving training and carrying out an e-dealing.

LINZ has developed the first in a series of online e-dealing practice tutorials. 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.

Keep reading Landwrap for updates on the availability of other tutorials.

Benefits of e-survey rolling in

e-survey is gaining support with New Plymouth surveyors as the benefits begin to roll in. Three firms we talked to say they're 100% e-survey or close to it, and won't be going back.

Allen Juffermans, Juffermans Surveying, says his clients are opting for e-survey when they hear about the quicker turn-around times. "When I first converted, I gave my clients the option of re-entering their plans into e-survey. They all said 'forget paper plans – do e-survey!'"

Geoff Bland, Bland & Howard Surveyors, audits his firm's plans and says e-survey has made a huge impact. "I'd spend anywhere from four hours to a couple of days doing an audit on a paper plan. With e-survey, I basically check it all in about 15 minutes and then the plan is gone."

He's impressed with the quicker turn-around times at LINZ. "I lodged an e-survey on Friday and received approval the following Tuesday morning."

McKinley & Co.'s Alan Doy says LINZ has approved e-surveys in a couple of days and this has had a positive effect on his firm's cash flow. "The sooner we get the plan approved, the sooner we can send out accounts."

Allen Juffermans says e-survey benefits a remote office like his. "I can submit plans and have them back approved so quickly without worrying about couriers. It used to take two days for the plan to get to LINZ. Now I just press a button."

Alan Doy is impressed with e-survey's pre-validation and QA process. "I can extract data from XML and generate new traverses and lots, then load them into e-survey. It's cheaper than plotting them on a plan and is about 25% quicker."

His advice to surveyors contemplating e-survey is to "go for it!"

Digital Certificates – do not share them

LINZ suspects that some customers are sharing their Digital Certificates with others to access Landonline. Therefore, it's timely to remind Digital Certificate holders of the following important points:

• Your Digital Certificate is personal! One person – one certificate.
  
  

  Do not share it or let others use your Certificate. The front line security for Landonline is Digital Certificates.

  Landonline is a single system with a range of users, some searching, some lodging electronic surveys or registering electronic dealings. All have access to the same system and the same level of security must be applied to all.

• We will revoke your Digital Certificate when we find out!
  
  

  When we identify that you are abusing your Digital Certificate obligations by sharing, we will revoke.

  This means your access will be cut off and until a new Digital Certificate application has been processed, including fee, you will not be able to use Landonline.

• We do this whenever we find out that a customer is sharing their Digital Certificate with others.

  Where a user is not complying with the Digital Certificate obligations we are contractually obliged to revoke the certificate.

This is for your protection, and for that of the register and the cadastre.

More specialist staff to answer your e-survey questions

LINZ has trained more staff to answer your e-survey questions on our 0800 ONLINE support phone number.

Five e-survey experts are now on hand between 7am and 5pm weekdays to answer your calls. The new experts are used to managing the high volume of calls – an average of 140 calls a week, ranging from a quick four-minute call through to more lengthy enquiries.

However, if the e-survey specialists are all busy when you ring, your call will be routed to general support people. They'll take a message, and an e-survey specialist will get back to you as soon as possible.

So keep the calls coming - we're here to help.

Proof of Identity – form now available on the website

If you need to complete or renew your Proof of Identity for Digital Certificate purposes, you can now download the Proof of Identity form from the Landonline website.

Solicitors' Practising Certificates annual renewal

Solicitors holding a Practising Certificate will have received an email from LINZ reminding you that your certificate expired at the end of January. All customers with 'certify and sign' privileges need to ensure that a copy of your new practising certificate is forwarded to LINZ to retain those privileges.

Please send in a copy of your new practising certificate, with the completed practising certificate form (available from the Landonline website) to:

Registration Authority
Land Information New Zealand
160 Lambton Quay
Private Box 5501
Wellington

Need to change your details?

There's one simple way. If you'd like to inform LINZ that any details for your firm, or people who work for it, have changed, here's the process:

• Click on the Registered User link in the left menu of the Landonline website homepage
• Click on Change your details in the left menu
• From here you can notify LINZ that you are changing a detail for your firm or an individual, adding or removing an individual, or adding/upgrading a licence.

LINZ sometimes receives notification of a change of detail by letter or as a note with an invoice. Unfortunately, doing this can add time delays to changing your details in Landonline if we need to call or write to you for confirmation or further information.

People in your firm who have system manager rights can amend details in Landonline themselves. Otherwise, send us your changes from the Landonline website.

Processing

Requests for pre-allocated plan numbers

Surveyors can obtain pre-allocated plan numbers and title references from LINZ for manually-lodged plans. LINZ provides this service to help surveyors and conveyancers who want to know the Cadastral Survey Dataset (CSD) number and title references prior to lodging CSDs and dealings.

Two new versions of the 'Request for Pre-allocated Plan Number' form are now available on the LINZ website in PDF and Excel formats.

Depending on the format chosen and the software installed on your computer, the forms are editable. This means you can enter and retain default information within some fields on your computer rather than having to print and manually complete the form. Some fields now have dropdown lists of appropriate information to help you enter the correct data on the form. This will also assist LINZ when entering the information into Landonline.

For digital CSDs, there’s no need for any additional application for pre-allocated references as Landonline provides plan numbers and title references as soon as the surveyor creates the job in the Landonline workspace.

Requisition review consistency

In November 2003, LINZ introduced a standard process for surveyors to request a review of a survey requisition. While this process seems to be working well, there have been some suggestions of inconsistency between processing centres. All review requests are now subject to a centralised check before the results of the review are returned to the surveyor.

If you receive a requisition you disagree with, please discuss this first with the LINZ contact person shown on the Requisition Notice by calling 0800 ONLINE. If agreement cannot be reached, you should complete a Request for a Review as detailed on LINZ's website.

The review will thoroughly investigate the issues raised. It will then be subject to a check for national consistency before you are advised of the outcome.

Post-approval plan corrections

The 'light-handed' approval process resulting from the Survey Handbook Project has created increased demand for post-approval changes to survey plans. As noted in earlier issues of Landwrap, if surveyors and solicitors do not co-ordinate their approach, plans may be lodged that can be approved as correct for survey purposes, but not be suitable for deposit.

If this happens, surveyors may be required to lodge a new plan or approach LINZ for permission to make changes to the approved plan.

Chapter Two of the Cadastral Survey Guidelines provides surveyors with guidance on LINZ's approach to post-approval changes:

In the case where the approved dataset cannot deposit because of an omission, error, or inadequate detail, then the following points are to be noted:

• In the general case a new CSD will be required.
• Amendments to the CSD will only be carried out in very exceptional circumstances and only with the written approval of the Processing Centre Manager.
• An approved CSD will not be released, under any circumstances, for amendment.

When an approved plan cannot deposit because of an omission, error or inadequate detail, processing centres will generally advise the surveyor or solicitor that a new CSD will be required.

When there are very exceptional circumstances, a Processing Centre Manager may agree to post-approval changes. If the surveyor thinks that these circumstances apply, they should write to the Processing Centre Manager concerned, detailing these special circumstances and requesting approval to make the changes.

All requests for such changes are now also subject to a centralised national check before the results of the request are advised to the surveyor.

If approval is given to make the change, the correction can only be made at the LINZ office concerned – the plan will not be returned to the surveyor. The change can only be made by the surveyor who lodged the plan or their agent. LINZ staff are not able to make changes to plans.

Hot Topics

This month's Hot Topics:

Landonline's availability

Just a reminder that Landonline is available 7am to 7pm weekdays. The 0800 ONLINE support is also available 7am to 7pm weekdays (includes regional holidays but not national public holidays).

If you have the log on page as your link to Landonline, you’ll see up-to-date messages about system availability and performance.

LandXML tips to help e-survey customers

To help you get the most out of LandXML, we have come up with a few tips on:

• Old Cadastral Datum (OCD) co-ordinates
• Survey software checks before saving to XML
• Editing in Landonline after an XML file has been imported
• Mark names in Landonline for new marks
• Bearing corrections
• Parcel mappings
• Failure to import due to parcel topology problems

Survey Report Template – make it your own

The Survey Report Template ensures surveyors focus on the principal areas of a survey that need to be consistently addressed, and to demonstrate the compliance with standards. It will also assist quality assurance processes for dataset components.

To give the template your own identity – or your firm's – we suggest you 'cut and paste' it onto your letterhead so it includes your name and contact phone number. Include in the header the Plan Number in big type, and if you change the text to Arial 12 point, it will scan or print to the tif printer clearly.

Please use the template fully and correctly without modification. Every heading must have an entry even if it's 'non applicable'. If necessary, the explanation can be converted to hidden text.

Search screens in Landonline

• If the window doesn't fill the frame in Searches, select 'Windows: Layer' from the menu and the view will resize and redraw to the correct screen size.
• If you have finished using the Spatial Select tool then select 'Map View: Clear Selection' on the Searches menu to get rid of the last yellow highlighted object.
• If you want several screens open and viewable at any one time, select 'Windows: Tile Horizontal' or 'Tile Vertical' from the Searches menu. This works best if you're fortunate enough to have a 21 inch or 22 inch computer screen.
• To have multiple screens available for viewing, use 'Windows: Cascade', then select and maximise and minimise the screen you want to view at any time.

Plan graphic images

The Landonline system 'batch' that generates the plan images for an e-survey runs every 30 minutes, so take care that the latest set of plans have been attached to your e-survey before submitting the data. This can be checked by opening 'My Messages' on the Workspace and seeing if the 'Plan Images' are displaying in the Messages Received screen. Verify that the date and time closely matches the time when you last clicked the 'Complete' button in Plan Generation.

Easement appellations

The accepted convention for allocating an appellation to an Easement parcel is to assign it a name of 'Marked'. This is to ensure the Legal Description reads in its correct context, e.g. the Legal Description will read as Easement 'Marked' A DP 12345.

Landwrap

Landwrap is the authoritative news and information source for survey and title customers.

We welcome feedback on the contents. Please use the Contact Us page on the Landonline website.

If you don't wish to subscribe to Landwrap, you can unsubscribe on the Landwrap latest issue page of the Landonline website.