Part 2 General powers of Registrar-General

12   Powers of Registrar-General

(1)  The Registrar-General may exercise the following powers, that is to say:

(a)  The Registrar-General may require any person who may have possession or control of an instrument relating to land the subject of a dealing, or relating to the title to any such land, to produce that instrument, and the Registrar-General may retain any such instrument, whether produced pursuant to this paragraph or otherwise, until it is no longer required for action in connection with a dealing lodged with the Registrar-General.

(b)  The Registrar-General may summon any person referred to in paragraph (a) or any person who to the Registrar-General appears to be interested in any land, title to land, or instrument affecting land, the subject of a dealing to appear and give an explanation respecting that land, title, or instrument.

(c)  The Registrar-General may administer oaths or may take a statutory declaration in lieu of administering an oath.

(d)  The Registrar-General may, subject to this section and upon such evidence as appears to the Registrar-General sufficient, correct errors and omissions in the Register.

(d1)  The Registrar-General may, subject to subsection (3A), on such evidence and after such notices (if any) as appear to the Registrar-General to be sufficient, and with the consent of the proprietors and any mortgagees of the land, correct the Register by correcting a reference to one or more lot numbers in a plan. The Registrar-General may make the correction on the application of a proprietor or mortgagee or on the Registrar-General’s own initiative.

(e)  The Registrar-General may record in the Register a caveat on behalf of any person under any legal disability or on behalf of Her Majesty to prohibit the transfer or dealing with any land belonging or supposed to belong to any such person as hereinbefore mentioned, and also to prohibit the dealing with any land in any case in which it appears to the Registrar-General that an error has been made by misdescription of such land or otherwise in any folio of the Register or instrument, or for the prevention of any fraud or improper dealing.

Editorial note. See Trustee Act 1925, sec 11.

(f)  For the protection of any person interested in land under the provisions of this Act the Registrar-General may record in the Register a caveat, or may otherwise record the interest of that person in the Register in such manner as appears to the Registrar-General to be appropriate.

(g)  The Registrar-General may, on such evidence as appears to the Registrar-General sufficient, record in the Register any change in the name of a registered proprietor, whether the change is consequent upon the marriage of the proprietor or otherwise.

(h)  The Registrar-General may at the Registrar-General’s discretion, and notwithstanding anything in this Act, dispense with any advertisement or the supply to the Registrar-General of any information or the production to the Registrar-General of any instrument.

(h1)  The Registrar-General may give notice by advertisement or by personal service, whenever and to whomever the Registrar-General thinks appropriate, of the intended exercise or performance of any power, authority, duty or function conferred or imposed by this Act. The Registrar-General may instead, if the Registrar-General considers it to be appropriate, direct another person to give notice in a manner and form approved by the Registrar-General.

(i)  The Registrar-General may, where the Registrar-General is satisfied that an estate or interest has been extinguished by merger, make such recording in the Register as the Registrar-General considers appropriate.

(1A)  Notwithstanding subsection (1) (h1), a notice of intention to bring land under the provisions of this Act or to grant a possessory application or to register a plan of survey lodged for the purposes of section 28V may be served by post.

(2)  Where a person required to produce an instrument pursuant to paragraph (a) of subsection (1) fails to produce the instrument or to allow it to be inspected or, being summoned pursuant to paragraph (b) of that subsection, refuses or neglects to give an explanation which the person is, pursuant to that paragraph, required to give, or knowingly misleads or deceives any person authorised to demand any such explanation, the person shall for each such offence incur a penalty not exceeding 2 penalty units, and the Registrar-General, if the instrument or information withheld appears to the Registrar-General material, may reject the relevant dealing referred to in that subsection.

(3)  Where the Registrar-General, in the exercise of the powers conferred upon the Registrar-General by subsection (1) (d), makes a correction in the Register:

(a)  the Registrar-General shall, by an appropriate recording in the Register, authenticate the correction and record the date thereof,

(b)  to the extent that, but for this paragraph, the correction would prejudice or affect a right accrued from a recording made in the Register before the correction, the correction shall be deemed to have no force or effect,

(c)  subject to paragraph (b), the Register shall, as so corrected, have the same validity and effect as it would have had if the error or omission had not occurred, and

(d)  the Registrar-General shall, while any right preserved by paragraph (b) is subsisting, maintain available for search a record of the date, nature and effect of the correction.

(3A)  If the Registrar-General makes a correction referred to in subsection (1) (d1):

(a)  the correction:

(i)  must not make original words or symbols illegible, and

(ii)  must be dated, and

(iii)  must be initialled by the Registrar-General, and

(b)  the correction takes effect as if the error corrected had not occurred, and

(c)  the correction does not affect the construction of any instrument made or entered into before the correction so as to prejudice any person claiming under that instrument.

(4)  Where the Registrar-General exercises the powers conferred upon the Registrar-General by subsection (1) (f) otherwise than by entering the Registrar-General’s caveat, the interest recorded shall be deemed to be an interest within the meaning of section 42 but otherwise shall have no greater operation or effect than it would have had if not so recorded.

(5)  Upon the recording, pursuant to subsection (1) (i), of the extinction of an estate or interest by merger, that estate or interest shall be deemed to have been extinguished accordingly.

12A   Power of Registrar-General to serve notice of proposed action

(1)  The Registrar-General may, before taking any action that alters the Register, give notice of the proposed action to any person that the Registrar-General considers should be notified of it.

(2)  Where the Registrar-General has given notice pursuant to the powers conferred upon the Registrar-General by subsection (1), the Registrar-General may refuse to take the action until after the expiration of a period specified in the notice and the Registrar-General may proceed to take the action at or after the expiration of the period so specified unless the Registrar-General is first served with, or with written notice of, an order of the Supreme Court restraining the Registrar-General from so doing.

(3)  Where a person given notice under subsection (1) does not within the time limited by the notice serve upon the Registrar-General or give the Registrar-General written notice of an order made by the Supreme Court restraining the Registrar-General from taking the action, no action by that person or by any person claiming through or under that person shall lie against the Registrar-General in respect of the taking of the action specified in the notice.

(4)  No action shall lie against the Registrar-General for failure to give a notice under subsection (1).

12AA   Notice to produce electronic form plans and other documents

(1)  As soon as is practicable after a written demand of the Registrar-General requiring its production is served on a person who has lodged a plan or other document in electronic form for the purposes of this Act, the person is required to produce to the Registrar-General:

(a)  an electronically formatted version or a hard copy version of the plan, as directed by the Registrar-General, or the original hard copy version of the other document, in each case as it was when the plan or other document was lodged electronically, and

(b)  in the case of a plan, the approved form for signatures on which the signatures, seals, certificates, consents or other approvals required to authenticate, or to authorise the registration or recording of, the plan were endorsed.

(2)  This section applies only to a written demand served:

(a)  in the case of a plan or other document lodged for the purpose of its being registered or recorded, while the plan or other document is so lodged, or

(b)  in the case of a plan or other document that has been lodged otherwise than for the purpose of its being registered or recorded, before the period prescribed by the regulations (or any shorter period agreed to by the Registrar-General) has expired after the plan or other document was lodged, or

(c)  in the case of a plan or other document that has been registered or recorded, before the period prescribed by the regulations (or any shorter period agreed to by the Registrar-General) has expired after the plan or other document has been registered or recorded.

12B   Mortgagee or mortgagor may be recorded as registered proprietor

(1)  Where it appears to the Registrar-General that the legal estate in land is vested in a mortgagee and the Registrar-General creates under any provision of this Act, other than section 17 (2), a folio of the Register for the land, the Registrar-General may record the mortgagee or the mortgagor in the folio as registered proprietor of the land.

(2)  Where, pursuant to subsection (1) or section 17 (2), the Registrar-General records a mortgagee as registered proprietor in a folio of the Register for any land, the Registrar-General shall record in the folio the Registrar-General’s caveat forbidding the recording in the Register of any dealing relating to that land by the mortgagee other than a dealing giving effect to an exercise of the mortgagee’s powers as mortgagee.

12C   Recording of native title in Register

(1)  The Registrar-General may, on evidence that appears to the Registrar-General sufficient, record in the Register approved determinations of native title made under the law of this State or of the Commonwealth and any other matters relating to native title rights and interests that the Registrar-General considers appropriate.

(2)  The information referred to in subsection (1) may be recorded in a manner and form that the Register-General considers appropriate.

(3)  In this section, approved determination of native title, native title and native title rights and interests have the same meanings as they have in the Native Title Act 1993 of the Commonwealth.

12D   Registrar-General’s Directions

(1)  For the purposes of this Act, the Registrar-General may provide information and guidance with respect to the following (to be known as the Registrar-General’s Directions):

(a)  the completion of approved forms,

(b)  the preparation and lodgment of documents and plans for registration or recording,

(c)  any other matters that the Registrar-General considers appropriate.

(2)  The Registrar-General’s Directions are to be published on the internet or made available through any other means determined by the Registrar-General.