Background to the Cadastral Survey Rules

The Rules for Cadastral Survey are issued be the Surveyor-General under section 49 of the Cadastral Survey Act 2002. They specify the standards that cadastral surveyors must achieve when carrying out cadastral surveys and lodging cadastral survey datasets with LINZ.

A transitional set of Rules were issued on 1 June 2002 to coincide with the Cadastral Survey Act 2002 coming into force. These Rules, known as 2002/1, were based on the Survey Regulations 1998. On 29 October 2002 an updated set of Rules, the 2002/2 Rules, was issued. The major change in the 2002/2 Rules was the provision for the electronic lodgement of cadastral survey datasets.

In 2004, the review of the 2002/2 Rules commenced to ensure they continued to meet the changing requirements of the surveying and regulatory environment. The review and the subsequent development of the 2010 Rules followed the principal of optimal regulation. This principle uses as little regulation as possible, but as much as necessary to minimise risks to the cadastral system. The result is that the 2010 Rules define the minimum standards expected from surveyors, without prescribing how these standards are to be achieved.

An expert committee comprised of survey practitioners, stakeholders, and LINZ staff first met in February 2007. This committee was tasked with developing a set of proposed Rules for public consultation, reviewing the feedback from the consultation and developing a final set of Rules for approval by the Surveyor-General.

Public consultation on the proposed Rules began on 15 October 2007 and ended on 1 March 2008.

Following the consultation period, the feedback was collated and summarised prior to its consideration by the expert committee. The committee issued an interim decision on the main issues raised by submitters in July 2008. It met for the final time in November 2008 and the interim Rules were published on 31 August 2009. The final set of 2010 Rules were published on 15 April 2010 and came into force on 24 May 2010.

Find out more about the introduction of the New Rules for Cadastral Survey 2010 (PDF 541KB)