Floss in Cadastre and Land Registration

Current registration arrangements

Samoa moved to a system of title registration with the implementation of the 

Land Title Registration Act 2008 on 2 March 2009. This change was accompanied 

by the introduction of standardised forms, the implementation of a computerised 

system and the legal recognition of the computer based records and in particular 

the “computer folio”.

Although it is possible for individuals to complete their own documents for reg-

istration, it is common practice for people needing to register a land transaction to 

engage the services of private lawyer to prepare and lodge the necessary docu-

ments with the MNRE. Details are entered into the computerised system at the 

time of lodgement. Staff from the Registration Section scan all lodged documents 

and associate them with the lodgement record, which has also been referenced to 

the appropriate computer folio (title) at the time of lodgement data entry. Regis-

tration staff then checks that the lodged documents are able to be registered. 

Once these checks are done the Registrar registers the transaction and the compu-

ter folio is automatically updated to reflect the new registration.

The public can also request various computer folio search products and these 

are produced by the computerised system. Likewise the computerised system cre-

ates new computer folios when a new survey plan is registered (as well as cancel-

ling the superseded computer folios).