Land Services SA pays $1.6 billion in 2017 for right to manage South Australian Land Title Office and sell its data

Land Services SA would work in partnership with the South Australian government's Office of Valuer General controlling fees and land services while the private company used the land titles registry to compile commercialised data.
Image courtesy Land Service SA and South Australian government

Land Services SA, a consortium of Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets and Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board, paid the South Australian government $1.6 billion in 2017 for the rights to manage the state’s Land Titles Office in a 40-year privatisation.

The Lands Titles Office held the registry of the state's property titles, including information about who owned property, when it was bought and its valuation. Land Services SA won the right to manage South Australia’s system of land titles and registry, including the right to commercialise related data, subject to state government approval.

Critics of the privatisation raised privacy concerns and the Public Service Association warned it could threaten the state's Torrens property title system. The state government said it would continue to set fees and charges for title searches and other land services and that the general public wouldn’t notice any difference to the service from the partnership of the government’s Office of the Valuer-General and Land Services SA.

Part of the Macquarie Group, Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets already had been managing other assets in South Australia for more than 30 years.  

Land Service SA’s income was derived from offering property information on aspects including sales, ownership, property valuation, building information, easements or encumbrances. It offered custom data sets for business and communities. For property developers, Land Services SA provided advice and services for land divisions. Land Services SA provided exclusive property valuations to the Valuer-General.

Land Service SA’s commitment to set up an innovation hub included:
* upgrading the South Australian integrated land information system by expanding dealings to be lodged electronically. This supported eConveyancing in South Australia,
* automated electronic registration for various dealings through carefully defined automated examination rules leading to improved processing times,
* a new sales comparison tool for internal use by Land Services SA approved valuers,
* redesigned the Land Services SA website,.
* enhancing the call centre software,
* integrating a new Electronic Lodgement Network Operator into the South Australian market ,promoting competition with benefits to the conveyancing industry<
* a new premium consulting service, offering industry professionals access to experts and a faster way to process plans, register dealings, and create titles,
* improving technology to examine plans digitally. This was the start of a project to introduce digital plan files.
* migrating several core Land Services SA applications to the cloud,
* engaging with South Australian businesses such as Nuago, PointData and Daitum to improve technology systems.