Property Records in NSW: How to Search a Land Title, Fees and Caveats

In New South Wales, a land title search runs through NSW Land Registry Services, a privatised operator working under the Real Property Act 1900, and the certificate of title that used to prove ownership was abolished in 2021.

New South Wales sits alongside seven other states and territories in our Australia Property Records hub, which covers the Torrens title system shared across every jurisdiction. This page covers how a NSW land title search actually works: who runs the register, what a search shows, current fees and how caveats work.

Who Runs the Register

The governing law is the Real Property Act 1900. Unlike some other states, the day-to-day register in NSW is not run directly by a government department: it is operated by Australian Registry Investments Pty Ltd, trading as NSW Land Registry Services (NSW LRS), described on its own site as trustee for the Australian Registry Investments Trust. NSW LRS operates on behalf of the NSW Government under the Registrar-General's statutory oversight, and the Real Property Regulation 2019 repeatedly refers to functions being exercised by "the authorised operator" rather than by the department itself. This is a privatised-operator model, not a straightforward public agency running its own register.

The register is a public one under Part 11A, section 96A, "Register to be publicly available": it is available to be searched in the way approved by the Registrar-General, at prescribed times, on payment of the prescribed fee. The Registrar-General can, with ministerial approval, restrict access to specific parts of the Register, but the operative text sets out no general ID or stated-reason requirement for an ordinary search.

What a Title Search Shows

Section 96A(2) lists what can be requested from the Register: a computer folio certificate, a section 32(7) information certificate, and copies or images of a manual folio, a registered or lodged dealing or instrument, or a recorded caveat or priority notice. Together these cover the registered proprietor, the estate or tenancy, and registered interests such as mortgages, easements and caveats. NSW LRS's own guidance confirms the practical route: since certificates of title were abolished, the way to get title information is to perform a Title Search rather than request a physical certificate.

A precise, section-by-section list of everything a single folio search displays was not confirmed from one dedicated part of the Act for this page; the shape above is verified, and a reader who needs an exhaustive field list should check NSW LRS's own title-search product description directly. What is confirmed is that the sale price is not one of the fields on the current folio. Price paid appears on separate records, covered below under Related Public Property Data, not on the register entry itself.

How to Search

There are three practical channels:

• NSW LRS Online, the official portal, which offers free index searches by title reference, street address, land value, plans, cadastral records and survey marks.
• Authorised information brokers, third-party services accredited to sell more comprehensive paid searches, including full title searches, dealing images and plan copies.
• In person, at the NSW LRS Lodgment Office (Level 30, 175 Liverpool Street, Sydney) or a public terminal, where a limited set of free searches is available, including street-address inquiries, prior title and new-lots-created searches, the Historical Land Records Viewer, and Old Form Torrens folio images.

Whether NSW LRS or its brokers offer a search by owner name, rather than by address, lot/plan or title reference, was not confirmed in the sources checked for this page. Neither section 96A of the Real Property Act nor NSW LRS's own "how to find a record" guidance names owner name as a search key, and neither document rules it out. A reader who specifically needs to search by a person's name, rather than a property identifier, should confirm current availability directly with NSW LRS or an information broker rather than assume either way.

Fees

Fees are set in fee units under the Real Property Regulation 2019, Schedule 1. The Schedule's own table gives the fee-unit dollar value by financial year; for 2026-27 that value is $131.66 per fee unit. The figures below are the regulation's maximum prices, computed at that rate; NSW LRS, as the private operator, is permitted under section 3C(2)-(3) of the Act to accept a lesser fee, so an information broker's retail price may differ and was not independently confirmed for this page.

Item 27 is a materially different, higher-cost product than the standard item 24 certificate, likely a manual or investigative search rather than an ordinary online title search. Do not treat the two as interchangeable when quoting a search fee. Most caveats today are lodged electronically through an Electronic Lodgment Network under a participation agreement, so the price actually paid for a caveat may differ from the Schedule 1 figure above.

Certificates of Title: Abolished

Certificates of title were abolished in NSW on 11 October 2021, when the Real Property Amendment (Certificates of Title) Act 2021 commenced. That Act abolished both the certificate of title (CT) itself and the control of the right to deal (CoRD) framework that went with it. All existing CTs were cancelled, and none has been issued since. NSW LRS's own guidance is explicit that, due to the October 2021 change, it is no longer possible to get a physical certificate of title.

Proof of ownership in NSW today is a Title Search obtained through the channels above, not a document held by the owner. This is an earlier abolition date than some other Torrens jurisdictions; do not assume other states or territories share NSW's 2021 date.

Caveats

A caveat is lodged under Part 7 of the Real Property Act 1900. Section 74F allows any person who claims to be entitled to a legal or equitable estate or interest in land, whether through an unregistered dealing, devolution of law or otherwise, to lodge a caveat with the Registrar-General; a registered proprietor who fears an improper dealing can also lodge one under section 74F(2). A separate provision, section 74B, covers caveats against a primary application, which lapse after a default three-month period under section 74C(1) unless extended by a court or proceedings are commenced.

A caveat lodged against a dealing under section 74F is not time-limited by default. It lapses only once triggered: under section 74I, the Registrar-General serves notice on the caveator when a subsequent dealing or plan is lodged, and the caveat lapses 21 days after service unless the caveator obtains a Supreme Court extension order in time.

Lodging a caveat, or procuring one to lapse, or refusing to withdraw one when asked, without reasonable cause makes the person liable under section 74P for compensation to anyone who sustains pecuniary loss as a result. That compensation is assessed by a court based on actual loss; there is no fixed statutory penalty dollar figure in the Act. The lodgment fee itself is the Schedule 1 item 13 rate above, about $166.62 at the regulation's base rate, though most caveats are lodged electronically and may cost differently in practice.

Related Public Property Data

The NSW Valuer-General publishes free bulk Property Sales Information (PSI) covering sales from 1990 onward, generated weekly by local government area for the current period, released under the NSW Government's open data policy. A separate NSW Land Values and Property Sales Map shows individual-property sales back to 2001 and street or suburb-level data for the last five years. This, not the title search, is where sale-price information actually lives.

A council-issued planning certificate under section 10.7 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (sometimes still called a section 149 certificate, its former numbering) specifies zoning and other planning-related matters affecting a parcel of land, on payment of a prescribed fee to the relevant council. In proceedings for an offence, that certificate is conclusively presumed correct in the applicant's favour. This is a separate document from a title search and is obtained from the local council, not NSW LRS.

Privacy Limits

The Register is public under section 96A, and the operative text sets no general ID or stated-reason requirement for a search. Two things about NSW specifically were not confirmed in the sources checked for this page and should not be assumed either way: whether a public owner-name search product exists (see How to Search above), and whether NSW LRS operates any address-suppression mechanism for people at risk, such as domestic-violence survivors. No primary source confirming or ruling out an address-suppression scheme was located; this is recorded as an open question, not a confirmed absence.

What is confirmed is that the sale price paid for a property is not a field on the current folio itself. It sits on separate records, the transfer/dealing document and the Valuer-General's PSI dataset described above, not on the title search result a member of the public would order.

What a Property Record Is Not

A NSW land title search is not a strata or community title record. Lot entitlements, owners corporation levies and by-laws sit with the strata scheme itself; see Strata Law in NSW for how those records work.

A title search is also not a court file. Litigation over a property, including a caveat dispute or a boundary claim before a court, is held by the relevant court registry, not by NSW LRS; see Court Records in NSW for how to search those. And a title search does not resolve who has adversely possessed land over time; that is a separate legal question covered in Adverse Possession in Australia.