Registry index maps

A while back, a friend called sounding rather excited. He had just bought a cadastral map, popularly referred to as a Registry Index Map (RIM), reflecting his property. From his map reading, the road which passes next to his land, which has been is use for years, didn’t reflect on the map. He therefore wanted to close it. I restrained him. And I warned him of the obvious consequences. But I informed him that the kind of map he held belongs to the category that was prepared for areas that underwent adjudication and serve more as an index for the parcels within an area, and not an accurate map base from which to extract survey measurements for use on property boundaries.

Adjudication zones: Physical boundaries are key

After adjudication, landowners were advised to plant and maintain good physical boundaries which could be seen from the air. Most people planted hedges that best grew and suited their climatic zones. The visible boundaries were then overflown and photographed, and maps to support titles subsequently derived therefrom. Any boundaries that hadn’t been planted with hedges, or weren’t clearly visible at the time of photography, may have got lost on the maps. So any errors from the aerial photography, human errors made during plotting of land parcels from photographs, and the fact that the width of the physical hedges is indeterminate, make these maps unsuitable to measure from, or even determine disputes.

In other cases, photography was not even done. Maps were compiled from the field sheets presented by demarcation teams. Field measurements to establish boundaries entailed rapid chain surveys, and in some cases, even sheer pacing. The maps are therefore of even lower accuracy. But the common denominator in both cases is that landowners were advised to plant and maintain boundary hedges. Therefore, such boundaries, as agreed and maintained in neighbourhoods, are the bona fide evidence of the positions of registered land parcels. They are held superior to the maps.

Disclaimer on registry maps

This is why the maps bear the disclaimer that “this map is not an authority on boundaries”. Indeed, this is restated in the applicable law, the Land Registration Act, which repealed the previous Registered Land Act. It provides that except where the boundaries of a parcel have been “fixed”, the cadastral map shall be deemed to indicate the approximate boundaries and the approximate situation only of the parcel. These mundane methods were fast and cheap, and enabled the titling of vast territories to meet the expediency of the time.

So field surveyors and land registrars should desist from disturbing the prevailing peace among neighbours in the respective adjudication zones by trying to work from registry maps to the ground. Only the evidence of landowners who have lived in an area for long helps. Similarly, in situations where there’s disparity between the size of a parcel as determined from the existing and undisputed boundaries, and that stated on a title, whether smaller or larger, the size as determined from the boundaries should be used to guide the transaction. It would be incompetent of any surveyor or land registrar to work back from the title and attempt to change existing boundaries respected over a long period.

Precise survey zones: Survey measurements are key

In areas which were subjected to accurate surveys, such as urban areas and the farms surveyed and leased from the former government land, the situation is the reverse. The cadastral maps, which usually reflect boundaries placed to centimeter accuracies, are the authority and are used to re-establish any lost or disputed boundaries. These are the boundaries referred to as “fixed” under the Land Registration Act. The property corners are marked by accurately placed survey beacons.

And the maps that guide surveyors in such cases come complete with details of coordinates, directions and distances to the property boundaries, contrary to registry index maps that only bear parcel numbers and approximate shapes of parcels without any enabling survey information. Therefore, unlike in the previous case, land registrars rely on the evidence of a competent surveyor, defined in the Survey Act to be either a government surveyor, or a licensed surveyor.

This is the duo context that has supported our land registration system so far. But the government retains the discretion to improve the accuracy of registry maps, should funds and policy allow. Let us meanwhile understand and respect it.

Dated: 6^th July, 2021