How wrong use of registry maps disturbs the peace

A while back, a friend called me, sounding excited. He had just bought a cadastral map, or registry index map, reflecting his property. A road that passes next to his land and has been is use for years didn’t reflect on it. He wanted to close it. But I restrained him.

That kind of map belongs to the category prepared for areas that underwent adjudication and serves 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.

After adjudication, landowners were advised to make physical boundaries that could be seen from the air. Most people planted hedges. The visible boundaries were then overflown and photographed, and maps to support titles subsequently derived therefrom.

Any boundaries that didn’t have hedges or weren’t clearly visible may have escaped capture. 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 the maps unsuitable to measure from or determine disputes.

In other cases, photography was not even done. Maps were compiled from the field sheets presented by demarcation teams. Field measurements entailed rapid chain surveys and 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 hedges. These are the bona fide evidence of the position of the land parcels and are held superior to the maps.

This is why the maps bear the disclaimer that “this map is not an authority on boundaries”. This is restated in the Land Registration Act, which repealed the Registered Land Act. Except where boundaries have been “fixed”, the cadastral map is deemed to indicate the approximate boundaries and situation of the parcel. These mundane methods were fast and cheap and enabled the titling of vast territories.

Field surveyors and land registrars should not disturb the peace by trying to work from registry maps to the ground. Only the evidence of landowners who have lived in an area for long helps. Where there is disparity between the size of a parcel as determined from the undisputed boundaries and that stated on a title, the size as determined from the boundaries should be used to guide the transaction. 

In areas subjected to accurate surveys, like urban areas and farms surveyed and leased from former government land, the situation is the reverse. The cadastral maps, which usually reflect boundaries placed to centimetre accuracies, are the authority.

These boundaries are referred to as “fixed” under the Land Registration Act. The property corners are marked by accurately placed survey beacons. The maps that guide surveyors in such cases have details of coordinates, directions and distances to the boundaries. Registrars rely on a competent surveyor.

This is the dual context that has supported our land registration system but the government can improve the accuracy of registry maps.

Mr Mwathane is a licensed surveyor and consultant on land governance. [email protected]