Property Records in Queensland: How to Search a Land Title, Fees and Caveats

Queensland's land title register is run by Titles Queensland, trading name of Queensland Titles Registry Pty Ltd, under the Land Title Act 1994, and anyone may search a current title for $25.71, but there is no owner-name search product and paper certificates of title were abolished in 2019.

Who runs Queensland's title register

Queensland's Torrens-title register is administered by Titles Queensland, the trading name of Queensland Titles Registry Pty Ltd. Titles Queensland's own account of its history states that in June 2021 the Queensland Government announced the transfer of the state's titles registry services to the Queensland Future Fund, enabled by the Queensland Future Fund (Titles Registry) Act 2021, and Titles Queensland was established at that time. The Land Title Act 1994 itself confirms the arrangement in its dictionary: the titles registry operator is the operator under the 2021 Act. The statutory Registrar of Titles remains the office holder under the Land Title Act, while Titles Queensland performs the day-to-day registry-operator function under the 2021 Act.

That is a government-owned-entity structure through the Queensland Future Fund, different from New South Wales' separately branded private licence model, but it is still an operator arrangement rather than the Registrar's own department running the counter directly. See Property Records in Australia for how this compares with the other states and territories.

What a title search shows and does not

Titles Queensland's own product description says a current title search shows the current owners of a lot, the lessees of a state lease or holders of a water allocation, and other registered interests including mortgages, easements, covenants, leases and caveats. A historical title search shows all interests registered against the title since the Automated Titles System began in 1994.

Neither product shows the price paid for the property. Consistent with the Land Title Act, the register records interests, not sale price; the price appears, if at all, on the transfer or dealing instrument itself, which can be ordered separately as an image of dealing instrument for $50.16.

How to search: OTIS, distributors and search keys

Titles Queensland's official portal is OTIS, Online Title and Image Searches, reached through the title-searches page on its own site. Searches are keyed by title reference or lot-on-plan, not by owner name; Titles Queensland's full list of available products contains no name-based product.

Seven approved distributors, or authorised information brokers, are named on the same page: Confirm, Creditworks Australia, Dye & Durham, Equifax, InfoTrack, PSI Global and Fynd. A person can also lodge documents in person at a contact-free drop box at Titles Queensland's Brisbane office, though searches or copies ordered that way may take several days. Water allocation and state lease searches use the same OTIS product, keyed by title reference or the relevant water-allocation or plan number.

Fees (FY2026-27)

Titles Queensland's FY2026-27 fee schedule is a statutory, GST-exempt table with two tiers throughout: a lower rate for information generated for a section 35(4) entity, and a higher retail rate that matches what OTIS actually charges.

The schedule has no line item titled lodging a caveat in words; caveats are lodged as an instrument, and the general any-other-instrument fee of $248.04 is the closest matching catch-all in the published table, but this page could not find a Titles Queensland statement that names that figure as the caveat fee specifically, so treat that mapping as unconfirmed even though the underlying $248.04 figure is verified.

Certificates of title: abolished in 2019

Titles Queensland's own customer notice states plainly that it does not issue paper certificates of title following the commencement of the Land, Explosives and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2019, which amended the Land Title Act 1994. Section 215 of the Act, in force, states that on commencement a certificate of title ceases to be an instrument under the Act and ceases to be evidence, conclusive or otherwise, of the indefeasible title. Section 217 similarly disapplies references to certificates of title in other Acts from that commencement.

What proves ownership now is the register itself: section 38 provides that the indefeasible title is the current particulars recorded in the freehold land register, meaning the electronic Automated Titles System record, not any paper document. The exact commencement date is not confirmable from the Act's in-force reprint, which carries no endnote or commencement table in the sections available, so this page says only that the change took effect in 2019 rather than naming a specific day.

Caveats and priority notices

Sections 121 to 131 of the Land Title Act 1994 govern caveats. Section 121 sets requirements: a caveat must be signed by or for the caveator and state the caveator's name and service address, the registered proprietor's details, the registered interest affected and the grounds of the claim. Section 122 lists who may lodge one, including a person claiming an interest in the lot, the registrar, the registered owner, or a person with the benefit of a restraining court order. Section 123 requires the registrar to give written notice of lodgement to the registered proprietor. Section 124 sets the effect: an existing caveat prevents registration of an instrument affecting the lot, subject to listed exceptions, without itself creating a registrable interest.

Section 126 sets a three-month self-lapsing default: unless the caveatee has served a notice requiring the caveator to sue, the caveator must start a court proceeding within three months of lodgement and notify the registrar, or the caveat lapses. That default does not apply to a caveat lodged by the registered owner, by the registrar, consented to by the registered owner, or backed by a deposited court order. Section 127 lets a caveatee apply to the Supreme Court at any time for removal, and section 129 blocks a further caveat on the same grounds without the court's leave.

Section 130 is the compensation provision: a caveator who lodges or continues a caveat without reasonable cause must compensate anyone who suffers loss as a result, and a court may add exemplary damages. Critically, it is presumed the caveat lacked reasonable cause unless the caveator proves otherwise, a reverse-onus mechanism rather than a fixed penalty figure. The registrar's fee for preparing and giving written notice of a caveat's lodgement is $46.56, and depositing a priority notice under section 139 costs the same.

Other public property data: valuation and council rates

Statutory land valuations are administered under the Land Valuation Act 2010 by the Queensland Government, separately from Titles Queensland, with a search tool and objections process on the Queensland Government's own site.

Council rates records sit under the Local Government Regulation 2012. Section 154 requires each local government to keep a land record for every rateable parcel, showing the owner's name and postal address, the land description, valuation details and rates and charges. Section 155 lets the public inspect that land record on payment of a reasonable fee decided by that council, meaning there is no single statewide rates-search fee across Queensland's roughly 77 local governments; an owner, lessee, occupier or their agent inspects free of charge. Section 155(5) is Queensland's suppression mechanism at this level: a council must not include a person's service name or address in the publicly inspectable land record while a suppression direction is in effect under section 204 of the Land Valuation Act 2010.

A working primary source for a standalone Queensland property-sales-price data product could not be located this session, so this page does not assert one exists or describe its access terms.

Privacy limits

Section 35 makes the register open to any person who pays the fee, with no ID or stated-reason requirement, confirmed by the Act's own text. There is no owner-name search product: Titles Queensland's full list of available products is keyed only by title reference, lot-on-plan or dealing number, and the Act creates no separate name-index search right, so this page treats the absence of a name-search product as confirmed rather than assumed.

Suppression for protected persons is confirmed at the local-government rates-record level, through section 204 of the Land Valuation Act 2010 feeding into section 155(5) of the Local Government Regulation 2012. Whether the Land Title Act itself, as distinct from the council land record, carries an equivalent suppression mechanism for a title search was not confirmed for this page.

What a Queensland property record is not

A title search is not a body corporate or community titles scheme record; those questions belong with Body Corporate Records in Queensland, not Titles Queensland. It is also not a court file: disputes over a caveat, boundary or contract of sale run through the courts, covered on Court Records in Queensland. A title search is not a probate or deceased-estate record either; see Wills and Probate in Australia for how ownership passes on death before a transfer reaches the register.