Electronic Survey Plan Process: Advice to Approving Authorities

Since electronic survey plans are PDF images, owners, charge holders, and approving authorities no longer have to sign survey plans that have been drafted on mylar.

Instead, a simple but secure process has been developed and authorized by legislation requiring all signatures and approvals to be gathered off the face of the survey plan. Simply put, the media upon which you provide your approval has changed.

Under the electronic survey plan process, an Application Form to deposit a Land Title Act plan or Strata Property Act plan has been developed for the express purpose of gathering all consents and approvals. This process allows for the gathering of consent signatures and approvals concurrently, where appropriate, and removes the burden of shipping a physical plan to several locations for sign-off.

Features of the Electronic Survey Plan Process

This system is designed to strengthen the security around dealing with legal survey plans as well as providing some significant cost and time savings.

One of the features of the electronic survey plan process is the pre-assignment of plan numbers. Pre-assigned plan numbers are beneficial for several reasons, including providing the ability to complete legal descriptions in accompanying documents. British Columbia land surveyors obtain preassigned electronic plan numbers that begin with the prefix EPP for Land Title Act plans and the prefix EPS for Strata Property Act plans.

Seeking Approval of a Legal Plan

When an applicant seeks final approval of a legal plan, you can request the same documents and copies of documents and plans that you require for approving a mylar plan. Furthermore, these documents and the plan can be delivered to the approving officer in a physical format or in an electronic format, or both. The choice is yours.

Two of the documents that you will receive are the plan image and affixed Certification Form and the Application Form mentioned above. Both forms will contain the pre-assigned plan number and a system-generated control number. The Certification Form affixed to the plan image will be secured by the electronic signature of the land surveyor responsible for the survey plan.

The unique control number is generated when the land surveyor applies his/her electronic signature to the Certification Form. Control numbers act as version control for the plan. Both the plan number and control number on the Application Form must match the plan number and control number on the Certification Form. If the plan number and control number do not match on both forms, please contact the sender for an explanation.

To provide approval to the plan, the Application Form must be printed if received in an electronic format, signed and returned to the sender. The signed Application Form can be scanned and returned by email, faxed, or the physically signed Application Form can be couriered or hand delivered. Signing this Application Form has the same legal effect as signing a mylar survey plan.

Note that the approval block allows the approving officer to write the specific pre-assigned plan number and Control Number ensuring that the approval cannot be mistaken for approval of a different plan or previous version of that plan.