Preliminary Strata Plan

If you intend to subdivide your property, whether commercial or residential, a strata subdivision survey is one of the routes you can take to officially go about doing this.

A Preliminary Strata Plan outlines the layout of the proposed lots within the development. It details the various proposed areas in the development, such as carspaces and planter boxes, what their use will be and which new lot they will belong to. You’ll need a registered surveyor to conduct a Strata Subdivision Survey.

This plan is required for both local council approval and in the contract of sale for your potential buyer. It clearly shows what they’re buying.

If you’re planning on subdividing your development and need a strata subdivision survey, don’t hesitate to contact C&A Surveyors. We’re fully insured and have registered surveyors ready to prepare your Preliminary Strata Plan.

Strata surveying is a way you can legally subdivide a property. Surveying in general is conducted on either a vacant plot or previously developed land.
These kinds of surveys are undertaken for the legal subdivision of;

• previously constructed group dwellings
• commercial or mixed-use developments
• Developments that are in the approval process

The process is dependent upon the point you are up to when you contact us. If you are at the beginning of the approval process, you will require a Preliminary Strata Plan for approval purposes. This plan is prepared from the architectural plans you provide to us.

Should you already have Strata Subdivision approval, you will require a Final Strata Plan, whereby our surveyors attend site to physically measure the development.

To obtain Strata Subdivision approval you will need to either submit a Development Application to Council or engage a Strata Certifier.

Once your application is approved, contact your registered strata surveyors at C&A Surveyors to conduct a strata survey in the field. This is when we’ll obtain the necessary measurements to draft a Final Strata Subdivision Plan.

This plan allocates the new lots and common property areas between the individual lots.
Upon finalisation of the strata plan, you’ll need a licensed Valuer to determine the Unit Entitlement for each strata lot. Unit entitlements reflect the amount of strata levies each individual owner will be paying annually. You will also need to lodge the Final Strata Plan to the mortgagee for their endorsement.

Following the above steps, the Final Strata Subdivision Plan will need to be signed by either the Local Council or a Strata Certifier and a Strata Subdivision Certificate provided.

The Final Strata Plan will need to be lodged with Land Registry Services for registration and issue of individual Certificates of Title.

In total, the planning process, application approval process and final strata subdivision survey registration process typically take 3-6 months. This time frame is dependent upon factors such as conditions of consent and the workload of the external bodies that are required to endorse the plan.

The General Site Survey (Detail and Level Survey)

A general site survey (Detail and Level Survey) is required when approval for Strata Subdivision is still being sought on a new development that is NOT built and architectural plans HAVE NOT been prepared.

These typically need to consider the following measurements (from which architectural plans are drawn):

• The size of the property
• The shape of the property
• Existing property features
• Location of existing Easements

The Preliminary Strata Subdivision Plan

A registered strata surveyor draws up the preliminary plan using the information from the architectural plans provided to us. The plan is then provided to you for submission as part of your application for approval.

These plans typically include:

• Sketches of any buildings
• Lot size area (sometimes dimensions and angles are included)
• Title reference details
• Unit entitlement
• Common property areas
• Common property notifications and encumbrances
• Shared services (e.g. common easements)

The Final Strata Subdivision Plan

After approval, the surveyor will produce a Final Strata Subdivision Plan by attending site and measuring individual areas of the development.

The final plan should contain the following:

• Area of each individual new lot
• Allocation of carspaces, planter boxes etc
• The designation of unit entitlement and common property entitlement
• The notification and encumbrances associated with the common property

As mentioned, the first step of the strata survey process is to obtain strata approval from Council or a Strata Certifier.

This requires a Preliminary Strata Plan to be drawn up for submission alongside other documents. This isn’t the Final Strata Subdivision Plan – it’s simply a plan to show the intended subdivision.

To create a Preliminary Strata Plan, we will require a copy of the approved architectural plans for the development.

The surveyor uses this information to draft the Preliminary Strata Plan which is then provided to you for submission to Council or a Strata Certifier as part of the approval process.

The length of the approval process is dependent on whether you are obtaining approval through Council or a Strata Certifier and whether approval is being obtained in conjunction with a construction consent.

What’s the difference? In a nutshell, ‘strata survey’ subdivisions mean that you will be splitting the development into individual lots with designated common property areas.

Torrens Title Subdivisions create individual lots without any common property areas.

Final Strata Subdivision Surveys are carried out on developments that are already constructed.

These buildings have been purposefully built for strata subdivision and include unit buildings and mixed use commercial and residential developments.

The building does not need to be built in order to obtain Strata Subdivision Approval.

You’ll need a strata survey if you wish to subdivide development into individual lot parcels with designated common areas.

If you are looking to subdivide your land and sell off lots you will need to get in touch with Registered Strata Surveyors.

At C&A Surveyors, we have expert strata surveyors that will guide you through every step of the process. Our strata surveyors are registered and insured to draw up your preliminary strata plan for approval and prepare the Final Strata Plan for registration with Land Registry Services.

We pride ourselves on ensuring an open, one-on-one communication between surveyor and client so that you can be kept in the loop throughout the process.

Strata subdivision is a rather convoluted process. So if you need a strata survey in the Sydney area and surrounds, be sure to contact us at C&A Surveyors.