Every boundary in Melbourne is buried under its records
General information about land in Victoria, not legal advice about a particular boundary.
- The first surveyThe deepest record. In Melbourne it begins with Robert Hoddle's 1837 grid of streets and lanes, laid out north of the Birrarung.
How to read the column
The bands are depth, not a date order: five kinds of record, from the surface to the base. Every guide opens with this section, its own band lit.
The Register of land is the official record for ownership of land in Victoria, and a title search shows the information it holds at the time the search is made. Land Use Victoria keeps the Register as individual digital records called folios, and for each folio there is a certificate of title, which may be paper or electronic. An instrument search reaches the other documents recorded against the land: plans, covenants, planning agreements and any encumbrance relating to the title.
Deeper down sit the plans. A plan of subdivision shows the break-up of a piece of freehold land into parcels, commonly called lots, that can be sold separately. Survey plans and abstracts of field records are certified by licensed surveyors, and show a summary of the information used to establish the boundaries and dimensions of a piece of land. Parish plans define the positions and dimensions of all Crown allotments within a parish. The State Government's own surveys and plans are kept in the Central Plan Office, Victoria's virtual storeroom for them, and the Surveyor-General of Victoria has responsibility for the plans held there under the Survey Co-ordination Act 1958. All plans held there are protected by Crown copyright.
Land Use Victoria, Property and land titles information
A licensed surveyor is the person who reads the whole column and puts the line back on the ground. Cadastral surveying is the branch of land surveying that deals with land ownership law and with defining property boundaries. The work takes in advice on where a boundary lies, on who owns what and on the rights, restrictions and interests that touch a property, and it takes in the marking of boundaries and the measurement of dimensions and areas, on land, on water, or along natural or built features. Two jobs dominate: dividing land into parcels for ownership under a title, and putting previously surveyed boundaries back on the ground, whether to establish the extent of what is owned or to transfer the title. In Victoria, that work is reserved: a person must be a licensed surveyor, registered under the Surveying Act 2004, before they may perform a cadastral survey.
Surveyors Registration Board of Victoria, About cadastral surveying
The base of the column, in Melbourne
In Melbourne the column bottoms out in the city's own first survey. Melbourne dates from 1835, and Queen Victoria declared it a city in 1847. The city's growth began with the surveyor Robert Hoddle, who in 1837 set out streets and lanes in a grid north of the Birrarung, the pattern now called the Hoddle Grid. That layout is the central business district as it stands today, and modern Melbourne's layout carries its influence.
The land itself was sold from a Melbourne office. With one exception, Crown land in the district was to be sold at the Port Phillip District Land Office in Melbourne.
Victorian Department of Transport and Planning, Melbourne's strategic planning history · City of Melbourne, Hoddle Grid: heart of the city · Surveyor-General Victoria, Surveying for Land Settlement in Victoria, chapter 2
Where to start
| What you see | What it is | The record |
|---|---|---|
| A fence. | A dividing fence separates two pieces of land, and it usually runs along the common boundary between the two properties. | The fence, the title, or the survey |
| A neighbour who will not agree on where the line is. | The Fences Act 1968 sets the steps: a boundary survey notice, a response period, and a licensed surveyor. | A neighbour disputes the line |
| The title, or the diagram on it. | A title shows what the Register holds. It gives an indication of boundary dimensions, and those boundaries are not guaranteed. | What the title shows |
| An old plan, a field book, a parish plan. | The plans behind the title, held by Land Use Victoria and by the Central Plan Office. | The old plans and parish plans |
The surveyor who may follow the line down is one the register shows as practising. Checking a surveyor is licensed explains the statuses the register shows. Checking a surveyor is licensed explains the statuses the register shows.