SERV - Secure Electronic Registries Victoria

On this page:

• Land Registry Services – Christmas and new year closures
• Priority notices
• Announcing Land Use Victoria
• Strata enhancement project
• Electronic and paper Certificates of Title
• Voiding Certificates of Title for common property folios
• Victorian Water Register
• Participation Rules and Operating Requirements for electronic conveyancing transactions
• Contact us
• Subscribe

Land Registry Services – Christmas and new year closures

Land Registry Services offices at 570 Bourke Street, Melbourne and 57 Cherry Lane, Laverton will close at 4.00 PM on 23 December 2016 and reopen at 8.30 AM on Tuesday 3 January 2017.

Online services (LANDATA and PEXA) will continue to be available during this period.

Customer queries (telephone message or email) will be responded to when the office reopens on 3 January 2017.

Priority notices

Priority notices will be introduced in Victoria on 9 December 2016.

A priority notice is notification of an intended dealing or dealings with land. Priority notices must be lodged using an electronic lodgement network (ELN), irrespective of whether the intended instrument or transaction will be lodged on paper or electronically.

To have effect, the information in the priority notice must be accurate and complete. If more than one instrument is cited in the priority notice, all instruments must belong to the same transaction and be lodged at the same time.

Land Use Victoria (LUV) will shortly publish a guide to priority notices.

Announcing Land Use Victoria

Property has long been the cornerstone of Victoria’s development and prosperity. With this continuing objective in mind, the Victorian Government created Land Use Victoria (LUV) under the Department of Environment, Land Water and Planning (DELWP).

LUV was established to provide new functions and capabilities for whole of Victorian Government leadership on government-owned land information and advice. This will enable more strategic use of government-owned land and maximum value to the public.

LUV also incorporates land administration and property information functions that were part of Land Victoria – Land Registration Services (now known as Land Registry Services), Valuer-General Victoria, Office of Surveyor-General Victoria and the Office of Geographic Names. The Victorian Government Land Monitor and Vicmap™ have also joined LUV.

Strata enhancement project

LUV’s strata plans, recognised by the plan prefix of ‘RP’ and ‘SP’, consist of 37,825 registered plans of subdivision under the Strata Titles Act 1967. These plans were digitally converted in 1992 when the digital converted image became the plan record.

LUV receives many enquiries from customers seeking clarification and interpretation of information  in these strata plans. Most enquiries relate to poor image readability and difficulties  identifying and determining lot/unit and common property boundaries.

A strata enhancement project is underway to address and clarify some of the issues with the strata plan records and will:

• improve plan readability and information clarity
• create common property folios, where a folio does not exist
• update strata folios from ‘unit’ description to a standardised ‘lot’ description
• where possible, link the folios for associated restricted and accessory lots.

The first stage of the project has begun.

Customers will be able to easily identify enhanced plans by their similarity to contemporary plans and the introduction of edition numbers.

Any queries relating to this project should be forwarded to LUV at strataenquiries@delwp.vic.gov.au.

Electronic and paper Certificates of Title

On the weekend of 22 October 2016 Land Victoria completed the bulk conversion of paper Certificates of Title (pCTs) to electronic Certificates of Title (eCTs) for the four major banks (ANZ, CBA, NAB, Westpac and their brands), where they were the first mortgagee. The only exception was where Westpac Banking Corporation was the mortgagee and the mortgage originator was RAMS Financial Group (Westpac/RAMS CTs). These Certificates of Title will remain on paper for a period of time.

As a result of the bulk conversion, the significant majority of Certificates of Title in the marketplace will be eCTs. Customers need to understand the implications of this change, including:

• how to identify whether or not the CT is electronic
• who is the eCT Control
• how to ensure the correct nomination is in place.

The guides listed below provide information on dealing with eCTs. They are available here or at www.delwp.vic.gov.au/property-forms>Certificate of Title management and electronic conveyancing.

• Certificates of Title and Administrative Notices
• Attending paper settlement when Certificate of Title is electronic

Voiding Certificates of Title for common property folios

Under section 31(2) of the Subdivision Act 1988 the Registrar may call in and cancel any Certificates of Title (CTs) for common property folios of the Register.

The Registrar will declare any paper CTs for common property folios to be void and of no effect under section 27BAA of the Transfer of Land Act 1958. The declaration will be published in the Victoria Government Gazette and take effect from 15 January 2017.

Victorian Water Register

General information on lodging documents for recording in the Victorian Water Register

Customers are reminded of the following requirements for lodging documents in the Victorian Water Register, to avoid unnecessary delay in recordings.

• If lodging in bulk or by correspondence a lodgement summary form or a covering letter (with details of the lodging party) must be provided with documents for recording.
• The ‘Lodged by’ section in forms must be completed, to ensure that any correspondence or contact can be efficiently received by the lodging party.
• A lodging agent must be clearly identified and their contact details and preferred pick-up notified in the document.
• All pencil and adhesive notations must be removed.
• All (and only) trust or office account cheques must be included in any lodgement; cheques should be made payable to Victorian Water Register. If the lodging fees payment is by credit card, a daytime phone number must be supplied in a covering letter. A Registration Officer will make contact to enable the payment by credit card.

Customers are also reminded to refer to earlier information on lodging, execution and validity of documents to be recorded in the water register – refer to Customer Information Bulletin: No. 141 June 2013 and No. 158 July 2016 at www.delwp.vic.gov.au/property>Land titles>Customer Information Bulletins.

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Participation Rules and Operating Requirements for electronic conveyancing transactions

The Australian Registrars’ National Electronic Conveyancing Council (ARNECC) has published for consultation Model Participation Rules Version 4 Consultation Draft and Model Operating Requirements Version 4 Consultation Draft.  These consultation drafts propose amendments to the Model Participation Rules Version 3 and Model Operating Requirements Version 3 respectively.  The deadline for feedback to ARNECC on the consultation drafts is 31 January 2017.  For further information on ARNECC’s consultation see www.arnecc.gov.au/resources >consultation.

Contact us

For location and contact details, go to www.delwp.vic.gov.au/property>Contact Land Use Victoria.

Subscribe

To receive the Customer Information Bulletin online, please send an email to lv.cib@delwp.vic.gov.au with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line – include your name and email address in the body of the email.

Page last updated: 11/07/23