The Effect of Adverse Possession to Part on a Future Australian Cadastre

In accord with modern cadastral principles, a comprehensive land information management system should ideally disclose the complete legal status of all land with the disclosure of all public and private rights and restrictions, including rights acquired under adverse possession. Recognizing trends to develop national spatial data sets, if a national cadastre founded upon these data sets is ever to be considered, a basic requirement will be a unified national law regarding land ownership. In turn this will require a unified approach to the issue of adverse possession of registered title land and particularly adverse possession of part of a land parcel. The authors view this issue as a major obstacle in achieving a unified national cadastral survey practice. This fundamental distinction requires resolution as a necessary step towards a unified approach ultimately leading to an integrated national cadastre. Adverse possession of part parcels permits the variation, rectification, and re-adjustment of boundaries with boundary definition being essential to parcel based spatial data sets. Wishing to promote consideration and debate on the issue the authors propose that the current Australian state schemes be categorized according to whether they permit part parcel adverse possession and suggest some possible options. The authors conclude that all Australian jurisdictions except New South Wales, South Australia, and the two territories (the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory) permit part parcel adverse possession of registered title land.