Electronic lodgment (ePlan)

Electronic lodgment of plans (ePlan) by an approved person was facilitated by the Conveyancing Legislation Amendment (e-plan) Act 2002. The Act, which amended the Conveyancing, Real Property, Strata Schemes (Freehold and Leasehold) and Community Land Development Acts, was enabled with amendment to the various supporting regulations on 19 August 2002.

A person must be approved by the Registrar General to lodge plans electronically (approved person) and can only be:

  • a surveyor registered in NSW or
  • a nominated representative of a surveyor's company, or
  • an authorised representative of a NSW State government agency.

ePlan access

Access to ePlan is via the Survey Services Portal (SSP). To gain access to the ePlan electronic plan lodgment facility you must be an approved person referred to above and must apply for and be issued with a userid and password to the SSP.

Once issued with a userid and password the approved person will automatically gain access to Level 1 menu options for ePlan. Level 1 enables the user to lodge plans for pre-examination only. Level 1 also enables the user to lodge test data to check compliance with NSW LRS file specifications.

To gain access to Level 2 ePlan options and the ability to lodge plans for registration the approved person must first lodge test data comprising all elements of a lodgment bundle. Approval to access level 2 ePlan options will only be given if the test data submitted meets NSW LRS requirements. Once successful your ePlan menu options will be upgraded and you will be advised by email of your Level 2 availability.

Note  Approval may be cancelled by the Registrar General for breaches of the terms and conditions of use which must be agreed to when entering the site.

Preparing the plan and other documents for electronic lodgment

The legislative requirements relating to the preparation of plans and accompanying documents on approved forms (i.e. content and layout) has not been changed for plans lodged electronically, but the original documents must be converted to an electronic image format known as a Tagged Image File Format (TIFF).

1. The plan

  • The plan must be prepared using a Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) application, a hand drawn plan is not acceptable.
  • No signatures will be shown on the final plan (an administration sheet must be used).
  • The CAD file of the completed plan will be converted/created as a TIFF image to NSW LRS specifications using a raster printer driver.

2. Accompanying documents

Documents that would normally accompany a plan and particularly those bearing original signatures such as:

  • a Section 88B instrument
  • Development contract/management statement
  • Developer By-laws
  • Plan Lodgment Checklists*
  • survey report, and
  • the administration sheet

must be scanned by the approved person and a TIFF image created to NSW LRS specifications.

* The Deposited Plan Lodgment Checklist must accompany all deposited plan lodgments from 1 July 2019.

The various regulations specify that the documents bearing original signatures and seals must be retained by the approved person for a period of seven years from date of registration of the plan - see clause 52 Conveyancing (General) Regulation 2013.

There are some documents that cannot be lodged electronically and the Registrar General requires the production of the originals before the plan will be registered. These include:

  • Title Deeds
  • Letters of consent
  • Copies of court orders
  • Statutory declarations, and
  • Statements of title particulars

3. NSW LRS TIFF specifications

The TIFF image must be created to the following specifications:

  1. Size - true to the approved form size (A2, A3 or A4)
  2. Colour - must be black and white (monochrome)
  3. Resolution - 200 dots per inch (dpi)
  4. Compression - CCITT Group 4

Where there is more than one sheet to a plan or other document, each file (plan or other document) must be created as a multipage TIFF.

How are the electronically lodged files named?

The surveyors reference followed by an underscore ( _ ) and suffix code to identify each document type is the required naming convention for each file. The following list of suffix codes must be adopted.

Document type Suffix code
Plan P
Section 88B Instrument B
Signatures/administration sheet S
Survey Report R
Geometry G
Strata Plan Management Statement M
Strata Plan Development Contract C
Strata Plan Developers By-Laws D
DP Management Statement M
DP Development Contract C
Building Management Statement M
Plan Lodgment Checklists K
DP Pipeline Form F
Letter/Miscellaneous L

For example, if the surveyors reference is B2156 for a deposited plan, and the files to be lodged include a plan, signatures/administration sheet, s.88B instrument, survey report, letter and checklists, the files would be named as follows:

Document type File name
Plan B2156_P.tif
Signatures/administration sheet B2156_S.tif
Section 88B instrument B2156_B.tif
Survey report B2156_R.tif
Letter B2156_L.tif
Surveyor and lodging party checklists B2156_K.tif

These 6 TIFF files must be compressed into a single zip file for lodgment and that file would be named B2156.zip.

Note  If there is more than one letter/miscellaneous item the letter file can be created as one multipage TIFF. Also, the Plan Lodgment checklist should be created as one multipage TIFF.

For further information regarding the legislation and how electronic lodgment of plans works see the ePlan lodgment information pages on the NSW LRS Website.

A user guide on the ePlan options is also available from the SSP once you are issued with your userid and password.

Service Status Update

Until December 2018, there will be planned outages for some NSW LRS systems while we undertake essential works. Where possible these works have been scheduled over weekends to minimise disruption to our customers.

Upcoming Outages:
Will be advised once confirmed.

To check on the status of our online services or to subscribe to our outage notifications, please visit our Service Status page.