How to find easements on my property in QLD. A Gold Coast guide from City Surveyors Gold Coast. You are about to build a pool, an extension, a shed or a new fence on the Gold Coast, and someone has asked whether there is an easement in the way. Perhaps your conveyancer mentioned one in the contract. Perhaps you can see a sewer manhole in the backyard and wonder what it means for the slab. The short answer is a current title search, which lists any registered easement. You can do the checks yourself online for about $100 in government search fees, though some documents take a few days to arrive. This guide shows the three checks in order, what each one proves, and the point where the records stop and a survey starts. It is general information only, not legal advice. Is there an easement on my property? The quickest reliable answer is a current title search. In Queensland an easement over a lot is created by registering an instrument of easement, so a registered easement sits on the title. Titles Queensland says a current title search shows the current owner and other registered interests, including mortgages, easements, covenants, leases and caveats. An easement is a registered right for someone else to use part of your land for a set purpose: a neighbour's access, a drainage line, or a corridor for sewer, water, power or telecommunications. Your land carries the burden. The neighbour's lot, or the authority that holds the easement, takes the benefit. Step one is free. Queensland Globe is the State's online map. Open it, search your address, then turn on the easement parcel layer, under land parcels, then rights and interests. If a strip appears across your lot, write down its label and your lot and plan number. You will need both in step two. Treat what you see as a pointer, not an answer. The Queensland Government says Queensland Globe is not the point of truth for parcel boundary information, and that the boundaries on the map do not represent the true property boundaries on the ground. A strip on the map that looks 2 metres from your house could sit closer or further away on site. Step two is the title search, and the survey plan, from Titles Queensland. The title search is the record that settles whether a registered easement exists. You can order it yourself through Titles Queensland's online search service, using your lot and plan number. Delivery can take several days, so order early if a builder is waiting. At 10 November 2026, Titles Queensland lists a current title search at $25.71, an image of a survey plan at $27.56, and an image of a dealing, the easement document itself, at $50.16. Statutory fees are not subject to GST, and approved distributors quote their own prices. This is the step that is easy to miss. Business Queensland says a current plan of a lot may not show easements, leases or covenants, and tells you to refer to a title search instead. An easement may have been created on a different survey plan, sometimes after your lot was first surveyed. So start with the title, then order the plan and the dealing that the title names, not only the plan of your own lot. Step three is reading the easement. On a survey plan an easement usually appears as a strip with a letter label, such as "Emt A", and on later plans a reference to the plan that created it. For an easement over part of a lot, the law requires a registered plan of survey designating the easement. That plan gives the strip's width and its distances along your boundaries. The dealing tells you the rest. Read it for three things. Its purpose: access, drainage, sewerage, water, electricity or another service. Who benefits: a neighbouring lot, or a public utility provider such as the City or an energy company. And its terms: anything it says about structures, access for maintenance, or restoring the surface after works. Keep the dealing number with your plans. Your solicitor, certifier and surveyor will all ask for it. The records tell you an easement exists and how it is described. They do not tell you where that strip falls against the pool you have drawn, the slab your builder is about to set out, or the fence line your neighbour is talking about. Plan dimensions run from the boundaries, and your fence or the map line is not necessarily the boundary. Pipes are a second, separate question. Most work near the City of Gold Coast's sewer, water supply and stormwater pipes is regulated by the Queensland Development Code, part MP1.4. Work that meets the code's acceptable solutions but sits within a Council easement still needs the City's consent. The code reaches lots that contain the infrastructure, or sit next to a lot or road reserve that does, not only lots with an easement. The City's sewer location diagrams help here, but the City notes that easements over internal infrastructure may not be included on that mapping. So the pipe map and the easement record are two checks, and you may need both. Where the question is what is under the ground, underground service locating is designed to map buried services before you dig. And what an easement lets the other party do, who maintains it, or whether it can be changed, are legal questions for a solicitor. If nothing is being built, dug or fenced near the strip, the title and plan are usually all you need. Once something is going near it, a survey turns the record into a position on the ground. An easement survey shows where an existing easement falls on your property, relative to the boundaries and to what is already there: sheds, driveways, walls and retaining structures. That tells you how close a proposed pool, extension or slab would be before anyone pours concrete. Because easements are measured from the lot boundaries, an easement survey often includes identifying the boundaries where pegs are missing or the fence is doubtful. Where agreed in the scope, the easement can be marked on the ground. Otherwise it is shown on a plan your designer, certifier and solicitor can work from. We work across the Gold Coast from our Bundall office. To book an easement survey, call (07) 5553 1570, or send your address, title search and a sketch of what you plan to build through the contact form. The checklist and the links to every source are in the written guide.