Department: Land Affairs

Department: Land Affairs

REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

Surveyor-General: Pietermaritzburg

P. O. Pox 396, PIETERMARITZBURG, 3200 – 300 Pietermaritz Street, PIETERMARITZBURG, 3201

Tel (033) 355 2900 - Fax (033) 394 7610 - e-mail:

We are the custodians of the Cadastral Information for KwaZulu-Natal

SG CIRCULAR No.1 of 2008

TO ALL LAND SURVEYORS SUBMITTING SURVEYS TO THE SURVEYOR-GENERAL: KWAZULU - NATAL

1.  DELAYS IN THE PROCESSING OF WORK SUBMITTED TO THIS OFFICE

A concerted effort is being made by our technical and professional examining teams to have delays in processing times minimized.

We are working to achieve a turnaround time of ± 15 working days or better. You can contribute toward achieving this.

2.  MEASURES TO PREVENT FUTURE DELAYS AND TO AID EXPEDITION OF EXAMINATIONS

It is obviously in the interests of all concerned that the workflow through our office should be as smooth and as quick as possible. Attention to the under-mentioned items will go a long way towards achieving such an objective.

2.1.  Submission and examination fees:

·  Please provide a breakdown of the fees submitted – cadastral and sectional title. This makes it easier and quicker for the Registry staff and the PA concerned to check that the fees are correct.

·  With every re-submission, an administration fee of R50 is always payable. In addition a reframing fee of R50 (per sheet) for diagrams and sectional plans, and R200 for General Plans (per sheet) is payable.

·  Documents submitted to this office should not be marked for the attention of a particular person, unless you have been specifically asked to do so. The person in question may be away or on leave and your documents could thus lie unattended until his/her return.

2.2.  Supporting Documents:

·  Please ensure that supporting documents are complete in all respects (e.g. Developer’s Affidavit) and that the necessary annexures are attached.

·  Note that Section 7(2) (c) of the Sectional Titles Act was cancelled in 2003. This means that you do not need to submit the developer’s consent to lodge draft sectional plans in this office.

2.3.  Consents:

·  Subdivisional consents should be accompanied by an approved copy of the layout plan, in colour and to full original size. Some of the black & white reduced copies which are submitted to this office (sometimes via fax) are completely illegible and absolutely useless.

·  If no consent is necessary in terms of any particular legislation (e.g. Act 21/1940 or Act 4/2001) then please tell us, in your report, why not. This office has to decide on the applicability, or otherwise, of legislation and cannot do so if the facts are not presented. To merely state that “Act 21/1940 is not applicable” is clearly not acceptable. We are obliged to seek clarification.

·  A copy of the consent must be lodged with each submission for phased developments.

·  Act 70/1970 is still applicable – the Port Elizabeth judgement (Stalwo vs. Wary Holdings) notwithstanding. The creation of wall to wall municipalities has blurred the lines with regard to the definition of Agricultural Land. If land was outside a TLC area prior to 1994 it is to be treated as agricultural land for subdivisional purposes unless there is good reason not to. For example, where such land has been subdivided into allotment areas and no longer used for agricultural purposes the ‘PTB’ route will have to be taken. It is often better to obtain confirmation from DLG&TA that an application is unnecessary rather than assume it to be.

·  The DFA (Act 67 of 1995) appears to be the vehicle increasingly used for consents. Practitioners must note Regulation 23(1). This requires that records be submitted to the Surveyor-General within five months of approval. The designated officer can increase this period. Such an extension must be granted within the five month period. Regulation 4 requires that queries raised by the Surveyor General must be dealt with within 60 days.

·  Advise planners to create Roads as erven. These should be created so as to form “closed figures without islands”.

·  Advise planners to accommodate for the numbering of General Plans. These should be erven over an erf. These may be incorporated into an existing township or allocated a new allotment area. All approvals should allow for this. Please assist the Surveyor-General in clarifying the rural/urban divide.

2.4.  Diagrams and General Plans:

·  The use of waterproof ink is essential as the documents in this office are meant to last “forever”. Some Land Surveyors are submitting documents which smudge when handled by people with naturally clammy hands. Clearly this is unacceptable. The problem seems mainly with inkjet-produced documents and ‘Koki-type’ signing pens. Laser and photo static documents seem fine. If you find yourself in the problematic category please speak to your service provider – there may be a solution. There are certainly many waterproof/fade-proof signing pens on the market.

·  Diagrams should be printed on durable paper (140-160gm). Goatskin paper is preferred.

·  This office is not here to do the work of Land Surveyors. It is therefore expected of you to provide all creative references (i.e. “T” numbers, etc.) wherever they are called for on diagrams and general plans. Land Surveyors are experts who should not shirk this professional responsibility. If the relevant references are not legible or available on the parent diagrams then these should be sought in the relevant title deeds or be obtained from the Conveyancers concerned. If, for example, a servitude being brought forward is not yet registered then you must report on the order of registration (or withdraw the servitude diagram, if it is no longer to be registered). Requests for withdrawal must be accompanied by the fees due and out copies.

·  Servitudes must be carried forward onto new diagrams. Practitioners should not assume that a servitude will lapse on merger. A Conveyancer’s certificate must be forwarded confirming the lapsing.

·  For diagrams and general plans larger than A3 size, please submit full size examination copies. The reduced copies submitted by some practitioners are difficult to read and even more difficult to edit.

2.5.  Survey Records:

·  This office does not necessarily know all your assistants by name, so to say that you were assisted by “Joe Soap” in fact tells us nothing. To add meaning and credibility please also disclose the PLATO registration numbers of your qualified assistants in your reports.

·  Coordinates transformed from Lo to Wg and used without further verification or subsequent adjustment must quote the SR source on the coordinate list.

·  Many Land Surveyors are ignoring the Regulation 18(1) (b) requirement for a comprehensive report. Some of the 4-liners which we receive are a waste of everyone’s time and the paper on which they are printed. If you want us to understand what you did, and thereby not raise unnecessary and time-consuming queries, then please tell us.

·  Some Land Surveyors seem to think that if points were fixed by GPS then no ‘field book’ needs to be lodged. Such thinking is contrary to Regulation 18(1) (c), which clearly calls for “field or other records from which positions of beacons were established”. It also stands to reason that a printout of raw data would be meaningless. The most acceptable and user-friendly presentation is a listing and comparison of the pairs of co-ordinates as determined in accordance with Regulation 3(2) (d). The software for this spreadsheet can be obtained free of charge from Stephan van der Merwe (PLS 1179). His contact number is 073 163 6677.

·  It is also apparent that many Land Surveyors are carrying out GPS fixes using only one vector. This is contrary to regulation 3(2) (d) and Section 12(1) (c) of the Act.

·  All GPS submissions must be accompanied by a calibration sheet.

·  It is understandable that a data comparison is not necessary when data has been “adopted verbatim” from previous surveys. However, when such data has been manipulated in any way (for example metrication / transformation / conversion from Lo to Wg / co-ordinate shifts applied) then a final data comparison is necessary in terms of Regulation 18(1) (f), but also essential to filter out any possible errors which may have crept in due to “finger trouble”. Such final data comparison should include found, adopted and reconstructed beacons.

·  Co-ordinate lists should be printed using text that is dark and bold, suitable for good quality scanning. Some Land Surveyors are lodging co-ordinate lists printed off a dot-matrix printer with a much worn out ribbon. Such lists are hardly legible and produce completely useless scanned images.

·  Once again, for those Land Surveyors who are not up to speed with current legislation – Regulation 59(1) (k) from the 1927 Land Survey Act was not brought forward in to the regulations in terms of Act 8/1997. This means that, since 1997, it is no longer necessary for the submission of the 59(1) (k) certificates, although you are still expected to carry out the various checks referred to therein to ensure compliance with Section 12(1) (a) of the Act.

2.6.  General:

·  If you have had jobs returned to you under cover of a specific non-standard letter, then please reply to such letter and respond to all the points raised item by item. Don’t simply return the letter without any comment as this leaves us in the dark as to what you have or have not done. Please bear in mind that the return isn’t necessarily dealt with by the author of the return letter. It should not be necessary for the second person to “re-invent the wheel”.

·  Should it become necessary, when dealing with a return, to effect amendments not called for by this office, then you should please report thereon in detail so that we can be aware of every amendment and check whatever is necessary. If we become aware of unreported amendments then we will be obliged to examine the document(s) de novo and charge the full examination fee again.

·  During the last few months this office has, in the interests of expediency and to bring down the backlog of work, overlooked certain bad practices and inferior work. The guilty parties should not see this as a condoning of the issues concerned nor try to quote them as precedents for the future. With more time now at our disposal, examinations will once again be on a stricter and more thorough basis.

·  Requests for the expediting of work are received almost on a daily basis. This is understandable in the light of delays. Please do not request such expediting unless is a matter of “life or death”.

·  Increasingly we are approached to substitute approved plans with “updates” with a “few amendments”. The justification forwarded is that legal contracts have been signed and the erf numbers should not be changed. Further practitioners argue that approved plans have not been circulated thus minimizing any chance of erroneous duplicates being circulated. Both these arguments are in favour of rejecting the request. Which legal contract is valid – both relate to approved plans? Plans may not have been circulated but these are available electronically and may be downloaded by interested parties. This practice will not be encouraged – it has the potential to compromise the integrity of the cadastral system.

·  Please do not instruct or allow your clients and technical, drawing office or administrative staff to telephone or visit our professional staff, as in many instances they are not too sure of themselves leading to a waste of our time and the delay of your own work as well as that of other Land Surveyors.

·  Surprisingly there are a number of Land Surveyors who have indicated that they are not in possession of a copy of the Manual of Procedures for the Office of the Surveyor-General: Pietermaritzburg. This is a most informative document that all practitioners should consult on a regular basis; as compliance therewith will minimize or even eliminate queries and unnecessary delays. An electronic copy of the manual is available on the CSG website.

3.  SECTIONAL TITLES

·  Please ensure that the True North is drawn on all field and median line plans. Their absence frustrates examinations especially when sketched field and median line plans are not true to the end product. Remember to also add headings, building and section numbers, dates and signatures to these plans.

·  Examination copies must be, in all respects, true copies of the originals, signed in the original.

·  Show all affected real rights on the working plan. A statement should be added to the report confirming no encroachments of buildings onto adjoining Real Rights or common property.

4.  CONCLUSION

·  Our sincere thanks to those Land Surveyors who already comply with most or all of the issues mentioned above. Your submission of exemplary work makes the processing thereof in this office a pleasure.

·  On a lighter note, a recent exchange, with a colleague seems pertinent. This particular practitioner has acquired a solid and hard earned reputation for doing no more than signing records. This particular sectional title return required amendments to section areas. The job was duly returned with the areas amended but the PQ’s unchanged. The responsible PA telephoned the practitioner to point out the error. “What!” he exclaimed “is this what they have done…staff – you cannot rely on them, where does one find decent staff?” We, at the SGO, can identify with these frustrations. We have similar problems with some Land Surveyors.

C. Ramiah

DEPUTY SURVEYOR-GENERAL: KWAZULU NATAL

(With thanks to MR. FRANK NAUDE for the draft on which this was based)

DATE: 9th April 2008

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