New South Wales without paper title deeds: what replaced the certificate

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Kooky

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For generations, owning a home in New South Wales came with a piece of paper: the certificate of title, kept in a safe, a solicitor's strongroom or a lender's vault. On 11 October 2021 that paper stopped counting. The NSW Registrar General cancelled every certificate of title in the state on a single day, and on the same day closed the counter to paper dealings.

Five years on, an owner may still find an old certificate in a drawer, an executor may be unable to find one at all, and a buyer may ask what arrives once the transfer is registered. This guide sets out what the Registrar General, NSW Land Registry Services and the amending legislation say on each point: what was cancelled and under which law, what is issued in place of a certificate, what happened to the lender's hold over the paper, which documents still travel outside the electronic route, and how ownership is shown today. Where the official pages read for it are silent, the guide says so.

NSW Registrar General, announcement of 2 July 2021, page on 100% eConveyancing and webinar questions and answers, September 2021.

What changed on 11 October 2021

The NSW Registrar General describes two significant changes that took effect together. Certificates of title were cancelled, and all land dealings had to be lodged electronically from then on. The office's page on the reform, which carries the label "100% eConveyancing", says the changes moved New South Wales away from paper-based processes.

On the first change the wording is exact. Existing certificates were cancelled. Certificates are no longer issued. And an existing certificate cannot be required to be produced in order to have a dealing or a plan lodged for registration. That third sentence is the one with practical weight: whoever holds the paper can no longer slow or stop a dealing by withholding it.

The Registrar General's announcement of 2 July 2021 gave the day a name. It declared 11 October 2021 to be the "cessation day", the day on which all certificates of title would be abolished. From that day, the announcement said, all current certificates have no legal effect and the Registrar General no longer issues certificates for any reason.

The cancellation covered both forms in which a certificate could exist. According to the questions and answers the Registrar General published after a webinar in September 2021, paper and electronic certificates alike were cancelled by legislation.

Some things did not change at all. The same document says the folio identifier and the volume and folio numbers of each property stayed the same.

The law behind the cancellation

The reform rests on the Real Property Amendment (Certificates of Title) Act 2021, which amended the Real Property Act 1900. The Registrar General records that the bill was introduced into the New South Wales Parliament on 17 March 2021, with the stated aim of completing the transition to 100% eConveyancing. Victor Dominello, then Minister for Customer Service, said the milestone followed five years of work and retired paper processes that had existed for more than 150 years.

The explanatory note to the bill's first print lists what it set out to remove: the requirement to issue certificates of title, the requirement to make recordings on them, the Registrar General's power to require their production, the need for owners to produce and rely on them in conveyancing, and provisions that restricted electronic conveyancing. Among the provisions it omitted was section 111 of the Real Property Act 1900, which dealt with lost certificates of title, and section 32(5), the power to require production. It also redefined the word "lodge" in section 3 so that it includes electronic lodgment.

On the mechanism of cancellation, two official texts point to different places, and both are given here. The Registrar General's announcement of 2 July 2021 cites section 33AAA of the Real Property Act 1900 as the provision under which current certificates have no legal effect from cessation day. The bill as first printed placed the mechanism in a transitional clause: the Registrar General could declare a cessation day by order published in the Gazette, the day could be no earlier than the first day after a period of three months from publication, and certificates already issued would have "no force or effect". The Act as finally passed was not read for this guide, so the section number is the Registrar General's and the three-month rule is the first print's.

A worked example shows how the notice rule and the chosen day fit. Assume, purely for illustration, that the order was published on 2 July 2021, the date of the Registrar General's announcement; the Gazette date itself was not read. Three months counted from 2 July 2021 run out at the start of October 2021. A cessation day of 11 October 2021 falls after that period, as the first print required.

According to the Registrar General's notice on the Conveyancing Rules, the amending Act commenced on 11 October 2021.

From bill to cessation day

The Registrar General's notice of 1 September 2021 states that there were no transitional arrangements, and the webinar answers give the reason: hard cut-off dates were chosen because they give certainty.

The final week was tightly sequenced. NSW Land Registry Services told customers that it would register an application to replace a certificate only if it was lodged up to and including 6 October 2021, a Wednesday; an application lodged from 7 October might not be registered before the Act took effect. Certificates, consents and letters of authority supporting paper dealings already lodged had to be received by close of business on 8 October 2021. A final print and delivery of paper certificates ran on 11 October itself, covering plans and dealings registered on 8 October. After that, the registry said, it could no longer print certificates at all, so any replacement application still held up by an outstanding requisition could not proceed.

The bill's first print dealt with dealings caught in the middle. A dealing lodged before cessation day that needed a certificate, and was not yet registered, was dealt with under the requirements in force when it was lodged. If it was withdrawn and lodged again, the new requirements applied.

What a cancelled certificate means for an owner

For an owner the short version, in the Registrar General's webinar answers, is that nothing had to be done. Ownership is recorded on the Torrens Title Register, not held in paper, and a certificate was only ever a copy of what the Register already said. The same answers say that the original certificate may be kept by the registered owner as a keepsake.

A fact sheet the Office of the Registrar General issued in May 2021 said that certificates would cease to be an instrument under the law and "will no longer be evidence of indefeasible title".

The official texts spell out three practical consequences.

1. A certificate is not needed for an electronic settlement or lodgment. The webinar answers add that the requirement to produce one was removed from requisitions, the formal queries the registry raises on a dealing.
2. Nobody can demand the paper as a condition of a transaction. The Registrar General's page says an existing certificate cannot be required to be produced for a dealing or plan to be lodged.
3. The registry does not take certificates back. NSW Land Registry Services said it could not accept certificates presented at its Lodgment Office or by post from 11 October 2021, while continuing its standard practice of returning certificates it already held that were not affected by an unregistered transaction.

One group of titles sits outside the cancellation. According to the webinar answers, certificates for water access licences were not cancelled, although certificates for coal rights were. Water access licence dealings also kept their paper route, as explained further down.

The Information Notice

What arrives after a purchase now is an Information Notice. The Registrar General says one is issued in all instances of a change in property ownership, and lists four things it shows: the folio identifier, the dealing or dealings registered together with their registration numbers, the subscriber's reference and the date of registration.

The bill's first print, in a new section 33 of the Real Property Act 1900, provides that the Registrar General may issue a notice to the person who lodged a dealing, noting its registration. The same provision says the notice is an information notice only, that it confers no interest in land, and that it cannot stand in place of an official search under section 96A. The Registrar General's page says the same thing in plain words: an Information Notice is not a definitive statement of the state of the Register.

Who receives it matters as much as what it says. According to the webinar answers, the notice is sent electronically to the subscriber, meaning the lawyer, conveyancer or lender who lodged the dealing, and not to the owner. It does not contain the owner's name. For a plan, it goes to whoever lodged the plan, usually the surveyor.

An owner who wants a record of the registration therefore depends on the representative passing the notice on, or on ordering a search. The pages read for this guide do not say whether representatives are obliged to forward it.

Control of the right to deal and what it meant for lenders

Before October 2021 the certificate did a second job. Whoever held it, or held its electronic equivalent, had what the registry called control of the right to deal, shortened to CoRD. A dealing that needed the certificate needed that holder's cooperation, given through a document NSW Land Registry Services calls a CoRD Holder Consent.

The framework ended with the paper. The webinar answers say CoRD was abolished from 11 October 2021 with no replacement, and that CoRD holder consents no longer exist. The Registrar General's notice of 1 September 2021 confirms that Version 6 of the Conveyancing Rules removed the requirements about certificates and CoRD because they were no longer necessary. For lenders holding registered mortgages, the webinar answers say, no action was needed.

Consent did not vanish altogether. It moved from the paper to the law and the contract. The webinar answers set out the position in four parts.

• Mortgagee consent may still be required by legislation, or where the terms of a mortgage require it.
• A second or later mortgage generally no longer needs the first mortgagee's consent for registration, although the answers advise checking the terms of the first mortgage.
• Consent is still needed for plans, and for dealings that involve easements, restrictive covenants or positive covenants, as the Registrar General's Guidelines set out for each document.
• A discharge of mortgage still requires the mortgagee's signature. Discharges have been electronic-only since 1 July 2019.

Where written consent is needed, the form is simple. The answers describe a letter on the mortgagee's letterhead, uploaded by the subscriber with the lodgment; a lawyer acting for the bank may give it, provided the letter states for whom the lawyer acts. NSW Land Registry Services said the same from its side: for dealings lodged from 11 October 2021, the written consent of the relevant lessee, mortgagee or chargee must be provided with the lodgment where it is required.

On private vendor finance, the webinar answers say that it is the registration of the mortgage that secures the mortgagee's interest in the property.

Liens and unregistered security over the paper

The parties with most to lose were those whose only security was possession of the certificate. The Office of the Registrar General addressed them in its May 2021 fact sheet, which warned that liens over certificates of title used to secure payment of costs may become invalid and ineffective once the amendments commenced.

The fact sheet names two groups. The first is solicitors and conveyancers who held a client's certificate until their costs were paid. The alternatives it lists are a lien over the client's other papers; a condition in the costs agreement allowing a charge to be created for repayment; and a lien over trust money held for the client, limited to the amount of the costs.

The second group is smaller cash loan providers, which the fact sheet says often did not register a mortgage on the Register and held a lien over the customer's certificate instead. For them it lists a lien over other documents or assets, registering a mortgage where the finance agreement gives a contractual right to do so, and taking legal advice.

The webinar answers add a general point for anyone holding an unregistered interest or a certificate alone as security: they were advised to act before 11 October 2021, for example by lodging a caveat or a priority notice. Although the fact sheet's title mentions equitable mortgages, its text deals only with liens, and the pages read for this guide do not say how an equitable mortgage created by deposit of a certificate before October 2021 is treated today.

Paper dealings and the exception process

The second change of 11 October 2021 closed the paper counter. Under Rule 8.8 of the NSW Conveyancing Rules, the Registrar General declared the remaining electronic dealings to be "Required Dealings". The declaration took in all the residual documents grouped as Batch 2 and Batch 3, together with the lease.

The Registrar General's notice of 1 September 2021 states the rule in full: from 11 October 2021 all dealings, caveats and priority notices must be lodged through an electronic lodgment network, regardless of when they were signed. Version 6 of the Conveyancing Rules replaced Version 5 on that day, Version 5 continuing to apply up to and including 10 October, and the waivers that had allowed paper lodgments were revoked. The list of dealings that can be lodged is kept in the Registrar General's Schedule of eDealings.

For the public, the consequence is stated in the same notice: a person must use a conveyancer or lawyer who is a subscriber to an electronic lodgment network operator in order to buy, sell or deal with property. The Registrar General's announcement names PEXA and Sympli as examples of operators, and describes subscribers as typically lawyers, licensed conveyancers, banks and government departments. Before acting, a subscriber must hold a signed client authorisation; the webinar answers say it may be signed electronically and must be kept for seven years.

Paper did not disappear entirely. It was folded into the electronic route through what NSW Land Registry Services calls a Dealing with Exception, the new name for what it used to call a Paper Dealing. The webinar answers describe how it works: the paper form is completed, then scanned and uploaded to the electronic workspace, so that the lodgment itself is still electronic. The answers give these cases:

• a transfer of part of the land in a title;
• a dealing affecting 20 or more folios that cannot be separated;
• a lease signed before 11 October 2021;
• a paper discharge of mortgage that was properly executed and is still held by the client.

A narrow set of documents stays wholly outside. NSW Land Registry Services said its Lodgment Office would remain open for water access licences, Old System deeds and powers of attorney, plans and associated documents, and enquiries, and that the one Real Property Act dealing excluded from the electronic mandate was the determination of title boundary. The webinar answers add that Old System and Crown land documents may still be lodged on paper, that water access licence dealings must be, and that plans continue through the separate ePlan channel without any certificate. The answers also note a fallback: the Conveyancing Rules allow paper lodgment during an outage.

The Registrar General's site listed, in October 2026, a consultation draft of the Lodgment Rules numbered Version 2.2. Its content was not read for this guide, so the exception categories above are given as they stood in the 2021 material.

How an owner proves ownership today

The Registrar General's answer is the Register itself. The office calls the Torrens Title Register the single source of truth as to the ownership of a person's home, and says it has always been so. A title search of the Register, available for a fee, gives the most accurate and up-to-date information. The webinar answers call a title search "conclusive proof" of ownership and say it can be ordered through an authorised NSW information broker or directly from NSW Land Registry Services. The fee is not stated on the pages read for this guide.

Proving ownership to the world is one thing; proving to a conveyancer that the person in the office is the owner is another. With no certificate to hand over, the representative establishes what the rules call the right to deal. According to the webinar answers this is done by sighting supporting evidence, and they list rates notices, land tax assessments, utility bills, loan documents and statutory declarations, in line with a guidance note of the national registrars' council. What is enough in a given case is for the subscriber to decide.

Two details in the answers explain why identity checks carry more weight than they once did. The Register does not record an owner's date of birth, although it records a company's ACN. Owners who share an identical name are told apart through the identity standard, not through the Register.

The Registrar General's page says the Register is securely stored and backed up by NSW Land Registry Services and the Office of the Registrar General. The webinar answers add that the Register was computerised in 1983 and that the office holds a daily copy. The State's guarantee of title stands behind it: under the Torrens system, the Registrar General's page says, land title is guaranteed by the State Government. The webinar answers confirm that the guarantee and the Torrens Assurance Fund continued after the change.

What the Registrar General says about lost certificates

Before the change, NSW Land Registry Services handled applications to replace a lost certificate or to dispense with its production. That procedure ended with the paper. NSW Land Registry Services said customers could no longer lodge applications to replace a certificate from 11 October 2021, and the bill's first print omitted the lost-certificate provision, section 111, from the Real Property Act 1900.

The Registrar General's webinar answers are direct about the result. A lost certificate does not affect a registered owner's right to sell or transfer the property, and losing it did not stop it being cancelled along with every other. No replacement is needed for a settlement after the changeover.

The same reasoning applies to estates. Executors do not need to find the certificate, according to the answers; a copy of the grant of probate or the letters of administration is usually sufficient to establish the right to deal, although the subscriber decides what evidence is enough.

The answers also address the older document that owners sometimes go looking for. A paper deed from an earlier owner that the current owner does not hold probably no longer exists, they say, because each change of ownership destroyed the earlier certificate.

For anyone uneasy about an old certificate being in someone else's hands, the answers point out that a certificate can no longer be used to commit a fraud, and that a registered proprietor does not need to lodge a caveat over their own land.

A New South Wales certificate of title now proves only that it was once issued. Ownership is whatever the Register says on the day it is searched.

Where New South Wales sits among the other states

New South Wales was not the first jurisdiction to drop paper titles. The Registrar General's webinar answers of September 2021 said that South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory were among those that had already abolished paper certificates, and that Western Australia was to follow. The position elsewhere has not been checked against each registry's own pages for this guide, and a rule about certificates in one state says nothing about another.

What the New South Wales material leaves open is narrow but worth naming. The Act as passed, the Gazette order and the current Lodgment Rules were not read, the fee for a title search is not on the pages consulted, and the webinar answers were written weeks before the change, not after five years of practice. The Registrar General's page on the reform was last modified on 2 October 2026 and still states the same two rules: no certificate, and no paper.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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