Teranet

operational

Opportunity Since the 1970s, Ontario has been involved in a massive land registration reform initiative known as the Province of Ontario Land Registration Information System (POLARIS). The goal of this initiative was to modernize the 200-year-old paper based land registration system in order to decrease the cost and time required to view and process land ownership records. In the late 1980s the provincial government sought a private sector partner to assist in the continued implementation and development of POLARIS. Following an open and competitive bidding process Teranet was established in 1991 as a jointly owned corporation by the Government of Ontario and Real Data Ontario Inc. Teranet is an early public-private partnership, structured using the corporatization model. Innovations The sale of government shares in 2003 transformed the arrangement from a public-private sector partnership to a service contract. Ongoing modernizations as a result of private sector involvement including automation of paper records and the rollout of electronic search and registration have resulted in the world’s first fully electronic land registration system. Results The fully electronic system is accessed via a proprietary software and the internet for a fee by lawyers, conveyancers, financial institutions, realtors and planners/surveyors. Today Teranet owns and operates one of the most efficient electronic land registration systems in the world with more than 400 knowledge workers that facilitate the delivery of electronic land registration services on behalf of the Government of Ontario. An additional 125 employees in Manitoba process Land Title and Personal Property registries. In 2011 automation of the estimated 5.2 million properties in Ontario was completed. In 2011 Teranet scored 89.5 per cent in the Ministry of Government Services end-user survey for the Electronic Search and Registration line of business—an increase of 3.5 per cent over the previous year. At all ties the government retains ownership and control of the data, statutory fees, policy, legislation and standards for the land registration system, in order to protect the public interest.

High