Offences against the Surveying Act 2004
Under section 45 of the Surveying Act 2004, the Board is empowered to investigate and prosecute offences against the Surveying Act 2004 and any regulations made under the Act.
The Board may appoint a person to investigate such offences on behalf of the Board.
In order for the Board to initiate and bring a successful prosecution for a breach against the Act and/or any regulations made thereunder, it is essential for the Board to obtain sufficient evidence of the breach to enable such proceedings to be commenced.
Part 5 of the Act sets out the penalty units for committing offences against the Act.
Following its first and successful prosecution of an unlicensed surveyor for undertaking a cadastral survey, the Board undertook a public awareness campaign on the importance of engaging a registered licensed surveyor for cadastral (property boundary) surveys.
Following a media release on this issue, the Board launched a flyer entitled Protect your property – Use a licensed surveyor. The flyer was distributed to all professional and industry bodies, Victorian municipal councils and licensed surveyors, encouraging them to display the flyers in their information areas and publish a digital version of the flyer on their web sites.
The profession can be assured that the Board is determined to do all it can to stamp out unauthorised surveys that pose a risk to the integrity of the cadastre.
Details of prosecutions of offences against the Surveying Act 2004 are published below:
These documents are available in Microsoft Word (MS Word) and Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not already have the Acrobat Reader you can download it for free from Adobe.