Residential Boundary Surveys
Boundary surveys help identify the physical boundary and ownership of a parcel of land. Otherwise known as an ‘Identification’ Survey, they determine the exact boundary lines of your property.
If you’re looking to identify your precise boundary locations as foundational work prior to building work commencing for your new house or an extension, to resolve neighbourhood disputes over land, or to build a new retaining wall, a boundary survey is likely to be what you need. Subdividing your lot and splitting your property into two for example, would require a boundary survey.
Do you know which survey you need?
Do you know which survey you need?
Identification Survey
Designed to identify the location of your property boundary, so that you can make home improvements, or changes to your property within the confines of your land parcel, and council requirements.
We’d recommend reaching out to our team if you’re looking to extend, add new structures to your property (i.e. new fences or retaining walls, carports, sheds, granny flats), if you’re unsure about your boundaries or if you’re purchasing a property.
Whilst it’s not a legal requirement in Queensland to gain an identification survey prior to the purchase of a property, it can be useful in determining if that property might have any issues or challenges. It provides you with the peace of mind to ensure you’re not going to need to complete an expensive boundary realignment post purchase.
What is involved in an identification survey?
Any survey, whilst it may look simple, takes a complex multi-faceted approach. Firstly, we look at all surveys that have been completed in the area and will establish changes which may have taken place.
Next, we’ll head to your property to locate survey marks or boundary pegs that have been placed over the years to establish the confines of your property and that of any immediate neighbours you may have. Lastly, we are legally bound to prepare a plan called an Identification Survey and lodge it with the Department of Resources to legally confirm findings and reasonings for the survey. It’s at this stage, you will be able to confidently understand the boundaries of your property.
Subdivision Survey
A subdivision survey is undertaken if you wish to divide your land or buildings into one or more parcels. Let us help you navigate through the process, to ensure you meet local authority approvals with any development applications (DA) for the proposed subdivision.
To gain approvals for any subdivisions, a development application will need to be lodged with your local council/authority. You’ll be asked to provide a proposal plan, outlining the proposed new boundaries for each parcel of land and the contours of the land.
Our expert surveyors will complete a contour and detail survey, proposal plan and may even recommend also conducting an identification survey, depending on the location and size of land you own.
Once your development application has been approved by the council, we can then complete a survey to reinstate and mark out the new boundaries, as per your proposal plan and any conditions which have been instated by the council. The onus is on you to demonstrate that you’re complying with any conditions set and forms part of the plan sealing component of your subdivision survey.
We will help you to engage with your local council to seal the plan and once all documentation is completed and lodged with the titles registry office, new titles will be issued to you.
Easements/Covenants/Lease of Land Surveys
Easement, Covenant and lease of lands surveys are prepared to allow other people to use part of the land or building that you own. Surveys are undertaken to define these areas, mark the relevant areas and survey plans are produced.
Easement surveys allow the use of part of an allotment, either for access use or thoroughfare, for utilities (like sewer), for shared walls and/or maintaining light or air. Once surveyed and described on a survey plan, you’ll be able to gain relevant council approvals before registering the easement with the Titles registry.
Lease Surveys can take place for either buildings or for land, to identify and mark the part of the building or land being leased, before the survey plan being lodged with the Titles Registry. It’s worth noting that lease surveys are only undertaken if part of a building or land parcel are to be let.
Covenants are restrictions placed upon you as the owner of a building or land parcel as to how you use the property. An example might be the local government placing a conservation covenant to protect a natural feature or enforcing requirements for a development build. A covenant seeks to protect land within a property, for environmental, historical or cultural reasons and the survey shows the extent of the covenant on a survey plan.
Amalgamation Surveys
An amalgamation of land parcels is where two or more lots, are combined into fewer lots. There are two distinct types of amalgamations that you may require – over freehold land and crown land.
Freehold land may be completed with a compiled plan and may not require a field survey, whereas crown land will need to be surveyed and marked if the land is changing to freehold. If the land is staying as crown land, there may be no need to survey the boundaries, unless the lessee wants to know the exact boundaries of their lease.
