LAND TRANSFER WORK

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 94, 14 January 1918, Page 6

LAND TRANSFER WORK

SURVEYORS DISSATISFIED,

The administration of the regulations for the conduct of land- transfer surveys was criticised by the president of the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors, Mr. C. Hastings Bridge, bis presidential address at the annual meeting of the institution on Wednesday last. Referring to the new set of .survey, regulations which the SurveyorGeneral has expressed his intention to issue, Mr. Bridge said that in framing land transfer regulations there were •two principles which should be kept in .view: (1) That the regulations should he full and complete in themselves and 3uite separate from the- regulations ealing with the survey of Crown and •Native lands, public works surveyb, etc.; (2) that they should contain iiotthing beyond what is necessary for insuring the accuracy of plans and surveys-' required for the issue 'of titles •under the Land Transfer Act. 'ihe regulations dealing with the survey of Crown! Jands and surveys made under fihe Land Transfer Act were so mixed that it was almost impossible to say which of the former applied to tie /latter' and which did not, and this was She cause' of most of the differences iwhiclj arose between private surveyors Jand Government surveyors. In the proposed new regulations it was quite apparent that many of the requirements were made with the object of acquiring information which might he useful to ithe Lands and Survey Department, but which was in no way necessary for tha issuing of titles. It had been pointed iout a far back'as 1896 that the great obstacle to the general adoption of the system of Land Transfer Act was the cost and trouble to which persons seeking to bring land under the Act were often subjected in the matter of surveys. If this was true in 1896 it was idoubly true at the present time, when the requirements of the Survey Department in regard to surveys and plans had. increased by at least 100 per cent. Many of these requirements were purely itechnioal and of no value as far as the Land Transfer Act was concerned.

The president expressed the opinion that the Survey Department should have nothing to do with land transfer surveys, and the latter should bo directly under ihe control of a land transfer draughtsman, who should be a fully qualified surveyor with field experience and a knowledge of the legal aspect of survey work. "I feel sure," added the president, "that such a land transfer draughtsman and the Regis-trar-General would draft a very much better set of regulations from tho point of view of both the public and the surveyors than any that have been issued. The proper function of the Lands and Survey Department is to deal/ with Crown lands and Native lands. Enough has come under my notice to show that the Government staff surveyors have little or no knowledge of how to make land transfer surveys in which the question of .title is involved. Their training'has_ not been in that direction. There is no question that in some instances the lelations between the Survey Department and the' Land Transfer Department have been strained, and both the public and the surveyors have suffered in consequence. Under the first Land Transfer Act the Registrar-General licensed the surveyors under the Act, and all the plans were approved by tho District Land Registrar, and it was not until the worlc of the Survey Office began to fall off that there was spy thought of that office takirg over the land transfer surveys."