What a title search shows
A title search shows the current information held in the Victorian Register of land. The Register is the official record for ownership of land in Victoria, and the search returns what it holds at the time the search is made. Buying and selling property, or getting a loan from a bank, are the examples Land Use Victoria gives of when a title search is required.
The Register is built out of individual digital records called folios, and for each folio there is a certificate of title, which may be paper or electronic. An online title search of the Register shows the most up-to-date record for your land, and where the certificate of title is electronic, the record also shows who currently manages the certificate.
Two habits around the search are worth having. Search the Register well before you begin any land transaction, which is what Land Use Victoria recommends, and set an eye on the future: there are alert services that can let you know when something happens on a title. If you want help with what comes back, Land Use Victoria highly recommends a Licensed Conveyancer or Australian Legal Practitioner.
The title diagram
The part of a title that touches the boundary question is its diagram. The diagram location or source document gives an indication of boundary dimensions.
An indication is not a guarantee, and Land Use Victoria does not pretend otherwise. Its page on titles and boundaries says that these boundaries are not guaranteed, and that only a Licensed Surveyor can determine the actual location of your property boundaries.
So the diagram tells you what the land was sold as and roughly how it measures. The question of exactly where the line falls is answered by a survey on the ground: a cadastral survey is the work that puts previously surveyed boundaries back on the ground, and works out the physical extent of ownership. The guide The fence, the title, or the survey works through what that survey does.
Land Use Victoria, Property and land titles information · Surveyors Registration Board of Victoria, About cadastral surveying
The instrument search
A title search has a companion. You can also do an instrument search to obtain copies of information on recorded or registered documents, including plans, covenants, planning agreements and any encumbrance relating to your title.
The two searches answer different questions, and the difference is worth holding on to. A title search returns the current Register entry for the land, which is to say the folio, its certificate and its diagram. An instrument search returns copies of the documents themselves, the registered or recorded instruments that sit behind the folio's entries. If you need to read a covenant or a planning agreement in its own words, you are ordering an instrument search.
The two searches side by side
| Search | What it shows | Where it is ordered |
|---|---|---|
| The title search. | The current information held in the Register of land: the folio, its certificate of title, and the diagram with its indication of boundary dimensions. | Online, against the Register of land |
| The instrument search. | Copies of information on recorded or registered documents: plans, covenants, planning agreements and any encumbrance relating to the title. | Through the same land information service |
Where the record stops
The sentence to carry away is the one Land Use Victoria prints on its own page: boundaries shown on a title are not guaranteed, and only a Licensed Surveyor can determine the actual location of your property boundaries.
That division of labour runs through everything downstream of a purchase. The title carries the ownership and the recorded interests. The line on the ground comes from a survey, and no amount of searching replaces it. Where a boundary itself has to change, the job is heavier again: changing property or title boundaries can be very complex, and Land Use Victoria's advice is that you will need a Licensed Surveyor and, in most instances, a lawyer.
For a purchase, one more document often joins the title search. A property information certificate contains land, building or planning information, and property information certificates are used when a property is being bought or sold. Normally a conveyancer or lawyer will order certificates on your behalf, though you can order them yourself online through LANDATA or an authorised information broker.
Land Use Victoria, Property and land titles information · Land Use Victoria, Property information certificates
The Melbourne record
Every Melbourne title rests on the city's 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, and that layout is the central business district of today.
The district's Crown land was sold from a Melbourne office: with one exception, it was to be sold at the Port Phillip District Land Office there.
For a Victorian parcel today, the order of business is: the title search for the Register entry, the instrument search for the documents behind it, and a property information certificate through LANDATA or an authorised information broker where the land, building or planning information matters.
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 · Land Use Victoria, Property and land titles information · Land Use Victoria, Property information certificates
See also The fence, the title, or the survey and The old plans and parish plans.