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Land Titles
The Department of Lands maintains the largest centralised land title registry in Australia. Nearly all freehold land titles in New South Wales are Torrens Titles, based on plans registered by Lands which define the boundaries of each parcel of land. Every year, thousands of new land parcels are created through subdivision activity. Lands issues a Certificate of Title for each new land parcel to provide proof of ownership.
Future transactions involving the land, called ‘dealings’, are also recorded on the Certificate of Title. Hundreds of thousands of these transactions occur in New South Wales each year. As well as buying and selling property, people take out mortgages, pay off mortgages, lease their property and inherit property, to name but a few.
A very small proportion of land in New South Wales is still owned under the common law deeds based system that was used before the introduction of the Torrens system in 1863. Lands is currently converting remaining ‘Old System’ parcels to the Torrens system.
All land title records registered by Lands are maintained in public registers.
If you are interested in exploring NSW's land heritage, Lands has produced the following guides to assist you in conducting online and over-the-counter searches.
User Guide - Searching the Records of the Registrar General (PDF 5.7 mb) December 2008 edition
User Guide - The Parish Map and Crown Plan in Family History and Genealogical Research (PDF 1.2 mb) December 2008 edition
User Guide - Torrens Title Searching (PDF 3.4 mb) December 2008 edition
History of the Registrar General's Maps and Plans (PDF 3.7 mb) December 2008 edition
