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CADASTRAL DIVISION
The Division is responsible for the execution, examination, approval and authentication of all cadastal surveys in order to provide Registry Index Maps and Deed Plans required to support land registration and issuance of land titles under the Government Lands Act, (Cap. 280), the Land Titles Act (Cap. 282), the Registration of Titles Act (Cap. 281), the Registered Land Act (Cap. 300) and other land related Acts. INTRODUCTION PURPOSE OF CADASTRAL SURVEY Cadastral surveys are carried out as part of transferring ownership from one person to another. When a new owner takes possession of a piece of land it is essential that he knows its whereabouts and extent. To achieve this the boundaries have to be physically measured, defined and mapped. There are several Acts of parliament governing the transfer of land from one owner to another and the two most important are the two most important are the Registration of Titles Act (R.T.A.) and the Registered Land Act (R.L.A.) The transfer procedures as far as this department is involved can be split up into five main stages:
It is the function of the Survey of Kenya to ensure that the Deed plan for R.T.A. correctly describes the position, size and shape of the land under survey and that there is no impediment to prevent title passing from one owner to another. |
| The Checking
Office is designed to see that surveys conform to those
requirements.
1. APPROVAL OF SUBDIVISIONAL
PROPOSALS:
When a landowner wishes
to subdivide a property, he has to submit his proposals to the appropriate
authority for approval. In most cases, before approval is granted to any scheme
the survey of Kenya is asked to comment on its survey aspects. Similarly, when a development plan is
prepared for an urban area, the Commissioner of Lands asks this Department for
its comments before the plan is approved.
When a request for
comments on a subdivisional proposal is received the following aspects must be
investigated.
(a) Head
Title: The head title deed plan of
the property must always be examined. In addition, all reference plans relating
to the property and abutting properties must be scrutinised to ensure that the
subdivision actually falls within the head title. The deed plan for head title
must be checked to ascertain that it is registered. The S.R.O. is informed by
the Land Office when property is registered and records the information on the appropriate reference
card, but it should be noted that the system is sometimes subject to error. The
only authority that can give a definitive statement on the registration of title
is the Registrar of Titles. Therefore, when a commenting officer has reason to
believe that a property is not registered, he should not be categorical about
it. He should merely inform the Commissioner of Lands that according to Survey
of Kenya records, the property would
appear to be unregistered ( and therefore will require registration before any
transaction concerning it take place.
(b) Existing Survey: Any scheme submitted for comment must be
carefully scrutinised to ensure that as far as possible, existing surveyed
layouts are incorporated within the scheme. Cases occur where block layouts have
been done many years ago but where few
if any plots have been allocated. New
development schemes cannot always take
theses into account and as often as not the surveys are cancelled. Even so it is
advisable to draw Commissioner of Lands attention to existence of any previous surveys overlapping a scheme. (If any registered title is
involved new development plans cannot ignore its existence and they must be modified to incorporate such
plots.)
(c) Simplified Procedure: It is often
possible to simplify (and reduce the costs of) subdivisional proposals that have been submitted by a person without any survey experience, and Commissioner of Lands should be informed of such possible simplification. Examination of the
relevant topo sheet, especially in townships, will sometimes indicate where a
modification can profitably be made e.g. moving a boundary slightly to avoid a building etc.
(d) Drafting Check: Subdivisional
proposals are sometimes submitted with large errors in quoted acreage or
dimensions, and where occur Commissioner of Lands must be informed of them.
Also, plans are sometimes inadequate, in
that it is impossible to ascertain the whereabouts of the proposed
subdivision. In cases like this the plan
must be made until a location diagram or some other means of identification have
been provided.
(e) General: Remarks on the principles of
design of a layout are normally to be avoided, but can be made where common sense indicates that obvious anomalies exist. It is also sometimes useful
to obtain a comment from a person who knows the area on the ground e.g
Provincial Surveyor.
2. ISSUE OF DATA TO
SURVEYOR
The general guiding
principles to be considered for R.T.A. surveys are. as follows :
-
The man in the field should have all the data
that may be of significance in assisting him to carry out the survey satisfactorily. This entails a
certain amount of investigation of original records by the data officer. Points
to be drawn to the attention of the field surveyor are: the existence of
different systems of survey, the sort of misclosure to be expected and the
existence or suspected existence of erroneous measurements, the possibility of beacons being missing or
disturbed, the possibility of illegal re-establishments. Where there is more
than one system of survey in an area, the man in the field should be given some
guidance as to which should be adopted. Where erroneous or defective surveys are thought to exist, surveyors should be asked to
prove datum through local relationships if possible.
With regard to private Licensed Surveyors, survey instructions should indicate, where
possible, minimum requirements to satisfy this office. With Government
surveyors, on the other hand, it is often useful to ask them to do a little
extra e.g. to lay down extra control, which may be useful and lead to future
economies. (A private surveyor cannot be expected to do this sort of thing as it
is his duty towards keeping his/her costs as low as
possible.)
Where survey instructions are issued to any surveyor (whether Government or private) pencil
reference should be neatly added to the most relevant plan quoting the file
reference, date and person to whom instructions have been
issued.
Instructions to Government Surveyors are normally issued to Provincial Surveyors (except in the
Nairobi Area) and should not be sent until a spare copy of the approved plan is available. (Commissioner of Lands sometimes forgets to send two copies,
and it usually happens, if the only copy of the plan is sent away from this
office, that a query about it is raised which needs that plan to provide the
answer).
Certain areas of Kenya
have specific problems in regard to survey, some of the common ones are as
follows:
Survey in the Coast
Province within the Coast Freehold Area
For some comments on
this, reference should be made towards CR/274/294 and
299.
Level of Lake
Naivasha: The legal boundary of land abutting on to
lake Naivasha is generally assumed to be the 6210 ft. contour. This as far as
can be ascertained was the height of land at the time of the original survey of
land in this area. However, it cannot be adopted as a rigid hard and fast rule
without taking other factors into account. If survey instructions are being
issued that involve the lake edge they should incorporate the
following:
Surveys in Settlement areas: The conduct and requirements of surveys in Settlement Areas have been laid down in separate circular see General
Circular No. 210 to 212.
Metre Datum
Surveys: The areas where no
previous cadastral work exists, the possibility of working off U.T.M.
co-ordinates must be investigated - see
CC/25/96.
Requirements for
Easements and Deed of Variation: Where a feature is to
be the subject of an easement, and an easement deed plan is to be prepared, the
feature need only be fixed to the same accuracy as a curvilinear boundary, see
Regulation 63. The same instruction applies to deed of Variation, and these can
often be compiled from topo maps - see Ct/132/130 and
CC/26/22.
R.L.A.
Requirements: Where a survey falls in
an area under the jurisdiction of the R.L.A. the properties boundaries may be
fixed, or approximate. In the former case the survey requirements are the same
as for R.T.A. surveys whereas for the
latter, approximate methods are
sufficient as "plottable accuracy" is
all that is required.
3.SUBMISSION OF
WORK TO THE DIRECTOR OF SURVEYS
Surveys for Cadastral
Title are submitted and retained by the Director of Surveys. This is (a) to
preserve a permanent record of the surveys, and (b) to ensure that any mistake
in the measurements or transactions do not go unnoticed and
uncorrected.
On submission, surveys are passed to the Surveys Records Officer, who carries out the following operations:
Always check your work
before claiming that a surveyor is wrong.
4. APPROVAL OF
SURVEYS.
The approving of survey plan is carried out in two stages, a preliminary check and a final check. The preliminary check deals with the routine work such as field note reductions, and data shown on the plan. The final check deals with the conduct and transactions of the survey. The various stages of each form are as follows:- PRELIMINARY CHECK- PLOTTING OF PLAN i) The co-ordinates must be
checked clerically against the final co-ordinate list in the comps. Any points
listed in the computations but omitted from the plan must be mentioned in the
report. Beacon descriptions must be checked against the field notes, and errors
and omissions of descriptions noted.
ii) Datum co-ordinates (i.e.
those obtained from approved plans) must be checked against their plan of
origin.
iii) The plotting of the grid
lines, (as regards length and rectangularity) and all the points shown on the
plan must be checked. Any points listed in the final co-ordinates (in the
computations) and not plotted on the plan, must be mentioned in the
report.
N.B. It is not necessary
to check the plotting of 'on-line' points by co-ordinates. Once the terminals
have been checked, 'on-line' points can be checked by scaling distances. Certain
other points can also be checked in this way provided that two distances
(running in different directions) are available for check purposes. Significant
discrepancies in the plotting i.e. those of 0.003ft (0.001m). or more must be
listed in the report. Discrepancies should be quoted in absolute values, not
plan scale values, e.g. "Beacon x is misplotted by 50ft
(15.24m)".
iv) There are two types of
curvilinear boundaries:
(a) previously surveyed
features which have been accepted and adopted, and
(b) newly surveyed
features.
v) The plan must contain a
full description of all curvilinear boundaries e.g. "Boundary is centre line of the river" or
"Boundary is 100' from centre line of the Railways". The direction of flow of a
river must be shown and also its name if it has one. Any omissions of the above
details must be mentioned in the report.
vi) Topographical details
such as roads, buildings, etc., shown on the plan must be checked. If newly
surveyed, an independent plot must be made from the field notes and computations
on tracing and compared with the plan. If detail has been transferred from an
existing map it must be checked in the most convenient
manner.
vii) Street names if quoted
must be checked from existing maps.
Abuttals are shown on a
plan to indicate the whereabouts of a piece of land in relation to existing
surveys in the area, and the plan should reflect a complete and up-to-date
picture of surrounding properties. The checking is carried out as
follows:
i) Reference plans must be
compared with the new plan so as to ensure that no subdivisions have been
omitted, and that numbering is correct. In addition, the cadastral sheet or
R.I.M. must be consulted, to ensure that cross-referencing is
complete.
ii) The actual plotting of
the abuttal boundaries must also be checked, and any misplotting listed in the
report.
PRELIMINARY CHECK-FIELD NOTES i) The chain
standardisation details quoted on the cover page must be checked against the
chain test cards
ii) The altitude quoted on
the cover page must be checked by reference to the Survey Manual or to the
1:50,000 series topographical maps.
iii) Measured lengths must be
checked for slope corrections, combined sea-level and temperature corrections,
and sag corrections. Where lines have been double chained and meaned, the means
must be checked. Errors of more than 0.03 of a foot must be listed in the
report.
iv) Means of two or more
sets of traverse bearing observations must be checked. Any reduction error of
more than 10" in meaning traverse bearing observations should be listed on the
report.
v) Triangulation
observations can be distinguished from traverse observations by the fact that
they are usually recorded on special pages and they include R.O. observations.
The reduction of the observations including the R.O. corrections, must be
carefully checked, and errors greater than 2" listed in the
report.
vi) If the field notes
contain tacheometric, subtense or other types of observations not listed above,
the supervising officer should be consulted regarding their
check.
PRELIMINARY CHECK- CONSISTENCY
The
objective of a consistency check is to ensure that mathematical data i.e.
bearings and distances shown on the plan are consistent with the coordinates shown on the plan. Also, boundary data for any plot must represent a
closed figure. For these conditions to be fulfilled it is essential that the
co-ordinates of every boundary beacon (except certain of those that define rectangles and parallelograms, and
groups of those) should be listed on the plan. The diagram below shows examples
of where co-ordinates are required and where not. i) It must be ascertained
that all required co-ordinates and boundary data are quoted on the plan.
Omissions must be listed in the report.
ii) The check must be
complete. On a large survey involving
numerous plots, a logical orderly progress must be adopted to ensure that all
boundaries, road secants and truncations must be quoted on a plan so as to
conform with geometrical requirements, i.e. a secant bearing across a bend in a
road must bisect the angle, and a truncation must be an isosceles triangle. (If
the data is computed from co-ordinates and joins, the correct geometrical answer
will not usually be obtained) The data must therefore be checked
trigonometrically first, without reference to co-ordinates. In any case,
co-ordinates of truncation points are not normally quoted on the plan. Pages
IX.28-29 of Survey Manual demonstrates the computation of
Road Secants:
iii) The consistency check must be error free and the actual procedure to be adopted in order to achieve this is as
follows:
What must not be done is
to write down all the co-ordinates first (i.e. before computing) and then carry out the check, because due to
human frailty an error can easily pass undetected this way and the whole purpose
of the check is destroyed.
Always check your work
before claiming that a surveyor is wrong.
Inconsistency on one
unit of the co-ordinates (i.e. 0.1ft or 0.01ft) may occur in "on-line"
co-ordinates or along very long lines. If they occur elsewhere they are usually
due to inaccurate computing and should be corrected (by the final checker)
.
PRELIMINARY CHECK-AREAS
Areas are usually the
last computations done by either the surveyor or checker, and as consequence are
sometimes carelessly carried out. However, it must be realised that areas are
usually vital to the landowner, as the value of his land is almost always
assessed at £k’s per acre, so it is essential to quote the correct figure.
Rectilinear areas are usually computed by co-ordinates. Exceptions occur with
plots shaped as rectangles, parallelograms, triangles, or trapezia where it is
usually quicker to compute the area geometrically. The Survey Manual, page vii
(iii) gives example of an area computation using co-ordinates. The procedure for
checking areas is as follows:
i) The area in terms of
square feet must be checked.
ii) The conversion of square
feet to acres must be checked. This is simple calculation but errors often
occur.
iii) Curvilinear areas are
checked using planimeter, which should be calibrated before first use (see
Survey Manual, page A.50), and thereafter about once a year, as a safety
precaution. The amount of curvilinear area for any plot must not exceed 10 per
cent of its total area and to ensure this, the computation must be split up into
rectilinear and curvilinear sections.
Auxiliary plotted
points (with scaled co-ordinates if
necessary)
The R.L.A. became law in
1963 and initially applied only to areas covered by the Land Adjudication Act
(The Land Consolidation areas). It has now been applied to several areas
formerly under the R.T.A. and it is intended to eventually replace the R.T.A.
altogether. Two main divisions of survey occur under the R.L.A. -surveys of
properties with fixed boundaries and survey of properties with unfixed
boundaries. The conduct of fixed boundary survey is essentially the same as for
those under the R.T.A. Surveys of unfixed boundaries are carried out to relaxed
standards and the Director of Surveys gives no guarantee as to the position of
the boundary either on a map or the ground.
From a procedural point
of view R.L.A. fixed boundary surveys and R.T.A. surveys differ slightly. The
latter requires a deed plan to back any land transaction, and when a new grant,
subdivision, or consolidation occur, the property is given a number by the
Survey records Officer (S.R.O.) in the Survey of Kenya Office, and deed plan is
issued to the property owner (via Commissioner of Lands or licensed Surveyor).
In order to complete the transactions it is upto the owner to register his
holding in the Land Registry, and until this is done he is not the legal owner
of the land.
Under the R.L.A. no deed
plans are required, but a R.I.M. is prepared for each registration block. When
transactions take place and have been registered, the registrar allocates plot
numbers and informs the Survey of Kenya and it is only following that the R.I.M. is altered. Thus the R.I.M. at all
times reflects the current situation in a Registry Office. (By contrast, a deed
plan can be (and often is) issued long before it is presented to the registrar
for Registration).
FINAL CHECK - OBJECTIVE
OF SURVEYS:
The first thing to be ascertained about a survey is "Why was it carried out, and what transactions are involved?" For example, the survey may be required to:-
FINAL CHECK –
TRANSACTIONS:
Nearly all land
transactions that involve survey and the preparation of new deed plans or
amendment of the R.I.M. require approval by some authority or other. Some notes
on the common transactions, their approval, and method of implementation follow
below.
DEED OF VARIATION, RESUMPTION,
ACQUISITION: Before starting the Final Check the checker should carefully examine the preliminary check to ensure it is complete, and to take actions as required. Following this, the mathematical check of a survey should proceed and will normally commence with an examination of the data on which the survey is based.
The next aspect of survey to be investigated is usually the control. The checker should be satisfied that the control traverse and/or the triangulation are soundly observed and computed. When investigating the control, he must keep in mind the economies of a job. For example, a Trig. scheme that may look a bit weak on paper may all that is economically possible on the ground without involving a surveyor in an extra week's work. With regards to the theoretical layout it should not be necessary to give its computation a detailed check. If the preliminary check has been correctly carried out a theoretical layout is self checking. However, points to be watched are road alignments, secants and conformity with surrounding or adjoining work. The placing and checking of new beacons are fairly straight forward, and the final checker should ensure that all beacons are correctly placed within acceptable practical limits. If there is a minor but significant misplacing due to an error in computing (or reducing field notes) it is sometimes advisable to quote both ground and theoretical positions of a beacon (e.g. a township beacon being misplaced by 0.15ft. would not require replacing but it would be advisable to quote both positions on the plan). Wherever possible of course, ground and theoretical co-ordinates should be the same. All placings should be adequately checked and the check must be demonstrated. Beacons
re-establishments are of two kinds, simple re-establishment using the original
co-ordinates, and re-establishments based on revised data. The first kind
involve similar procedures to placing new beacons and the same kind of checking
applies. The second kind are more difficult, and are usually capable of a number
of different solutions. Where data is revised it is almost impossible to
guarantee that any particular beacon is being re-established absolutely and
precisely in its original position. The important requirement is that any basis
adopted by a surveyor for re-stablishment purposes must be logical and
intelligent. (Also actual placings must be correctly carried out and
checked). FINAL CHECK - GENERAL
ROUTINE:
A few general notes follow on miscellaneous routine problems.
FINAL
REMARKS: |
©2007 Survey of Kenya