Survey documents in this context include the following:
- Deposited Plans (DP) all freehold plans/diagrams lodged since July 2000 and all old Crown Surveys
- Freehold Plans (P) lodged before July 2000
- Freehold Diagrams (D) lodged before July 2000
- Scheme Plans (SP) strata plans, survey-strata plans, plans of community titles (building) schemes, plans of community titles (land) schemes
- Field records
- Survey Index Plans
Each of these survey documents are available from Landgate for you to discover many of the spatial and legal aspects of your property.
What is a survey?
A survey is a process carried out by a licensed surveyor and involves the measurement and placement of marks (often called pegs, but not all marks placed by surveyors are pegs) on points of the earth’s surface to show the position of existing and new land boundaries.
Why have land surveyed?
Parcels of land (also known as lots) are surveyed for many reasons, including:
- To mark the accurate position of the legal boundary for an existing property.
- To create new lot boundaries because of a subdivision.
- To define an area within a parcel of land that may be burdened or benefited by a registered easement or other interest.
Home buyers would be interested to search the survey plan for their property to help identify if there are any issues with the property lines or any restrictions such as easements or a right of way affecting the property.
Order a survey plan
Survey plans are the official record of the legal boundaries of land and will usually indicate the dimensions and size of a lot. The three types of legal survey plans stated above are available from Landgate’s public register and copies can be purchased online.
Survey plans give you:
- lot size
- lot shape
- dimensions of lots.
Scheme plans may give you:
- building outline sketch
- lot sizes (areas but not always dimensions and angles)
- title reference details (volume and folio)
- unit entitlement
- notifications and encumbrances (lodged over lots and/or common property)
Plans of survey-strata and community titles (land) schemes give you:
- parcel sketch
- lot sizes (areas, dimensions and angles) and common property lots (if any)
- title reference details (volume and folio)
- unit entitlement
- notifications and encumbrances (lodged over lots and/or common property)
Samples
-
Deposited planpdf 726 KBView document
-
Older style survey plan (Crown Plan)pdf 5.75 MBView document
-
Strata planpdf 726 KBView document
-
Survey-strata planpdf 325 KBView document
To complete your order you’ll need:
- street address or title number (volume and folio) or lot on plan number
- debit or credit card
- email address.
Ready to order?
Access a survey document
An extensive range of current and historical survey documents are available in a variety of formats. The majority are available to the general public, although some documents are accessible only to authorised users.
Crown plans (original plans and diagrams) include district, townsite and other miscellaneous plans and diagrams. Crown plans were used when Crown land was released for agricultural or townsite development, road creation and reservation for public purposes.
Since July 2000, all Crown survey plans and diagrams have been lodged as Crown deposited plans. Existing Crown survey plans and diagrams were given a unique deposited plan (DP) number in addition to their Crown survey plan number.
How to access
All Crown deposited plans are available to order by their unique DP number. Landgate account holders can obtain the copies of the plans via email through Land Enquiry Services. Images of the plans can also be viewed, and copies can be ordered over the counter.
Freehold plans and diagrams show lots created by a survey, the use of either the diagram or plan format was dependent on the number of lots created. Deposited plans now encompass all freehold plans and diagrams. There is no limit to the number of lots being shown on a deposited plan as it may comprise several sheets.
How to access
Digital versions of DPs are available to be viewed or ordered, over the counter at our Midland office. Landgate account holders may also order their copies via Land Enquiry Services, which will be provided by email.
Field records are the licensed surveyor’s notes from surveys of land. Field records show the relationship between the original survey, the new survey marks and improvements and features close to boundaries. Field records may include resurveys of lots, exploration surveys and some links to mining tenements.
How to access
Field records are only available to specific authorised users. They can be obtained through Land Enquiry Services. Field records can be delivered by email or viewed at the counter at our Midland office.
Scheme Plans (prefix SP) comprise strata plans, survey-strata plans, plans of community titles (building) schemes, plans of community titles (land) schemes. These plans identify the lots in the relevant strata, survey-strata or community titles schemes.
How to access
Survey or strata plans can be ordered online, over the counter at our Midland office, or via Land Enquiry Services. More information in relation to what is involved in a strata and survey-strata scheme can be obtained from our Guide to strata titles and Community Titles guides
Survey index plans provide an historical record of survey boundaries, field book numbers, Crown and freehold plan and diagram numbers and public and private road dedications.
How to access
Subscribers can view Survey Index plans either via the DataWA website or through Map Viewer Plus (Survey Index layer).
Frequently asked questions
A plan prepared by a licensed surveyor showing the results of a survey, with distances (horizontal), angles, areas and if appropriate, improvements. The plans available from Landgate are almost always prepared for subdivision (e.g. deposited plan, freehold diagram).
Types of survey plans include:
- Deposited Plan (DP)
- Freehold Plan (P)
- Freehold Diagram (D)
Scheme plans define the lots in a strata or community titles scheme (areas owned individually) and common property (areas owned jointly by all lot owners in the scheme and is not contained within any individual lot). Strata plans must show a building on at least one of the lots on the strata plan and a stratum of the lots is always linked to buildings shown on the plan. Stratum is the three-dimensional space defining the extent of the lot. Either referenced to the building and/or a height and depth above and below a stated surface within the building, usually the ground floor slab.
Strata plans can create lots in a multi-level building, with different lots over 2 or more levels in the same building. That is, where one lot may be above or below another lot.
Survey-strata plans define the lots in a survey-strata scheme, which are the areas in the scheme owned individually. Common property areas owned jointly by all lot owners may or may not exist in survey-strata schemes and are defined as 'common property lots'. No buildings are shown on survey-strata plans.
Survey-strata schemes cannot have one lot above or below another lot. That is, they must be single schemes.
Landgate maintains the official register of land ownership and survey information for the Western Australian State Government. This means that it is a public register and all land information contained in it is available to everyone.
Landgate only maintains the records for WA. For land information from other states, please refer to the respective official government sites.
An easement gives a person or a company 'rights of use or enjoyment' over land owned by another person or company.
A right of way is a strip of land available either for use by the general public, or a restricted section of the community, and may be created by subdivision, specific transfer, or continued use over a period of years.
To understand what you own, it is essential that you obtain and examine a current copy of your strata plan and seek advice on its interpretation. Basically, whatever is indicated on the plan as a lot or is owned by proprietors. For instance, if you are the owner of lot 1, whatever is shown on the plan as being part of lot 1, is owned by you. Read the Strata Practice Manual for further information.
Survey plans do not provide building outlines or dimensions, contact your local government for more information. Survey plans do provide lot dimensions (including areas and angles) for all lots within a subdivision, which may be used to help determine the area available for various building projects.
'The survey you have requested is current - please note that there are other not yet active surveys against this address.'
This message is displayed when a current survey is selected for an address where multiple surveys exist. In the above example this would be the current strata plan, prior to the new subdivision survey.
‘The survey you have requested is not yet active and as such has no registered titles - please note that there are other surveys against this address.’
This message is displayed when a not yet active survey is selected for an address where multiple surveys exist. In the above example this would be the new subdivision survey that is in the process of being registered.
‘This address does not have any surveys attached.’
There are also instances where no survey plan exists for an address. In these cases, the system will display this message. Where this occurs, you will not be able to proceed with your order and will only have the option to go to the previous screen.