1887-1903
COLONIAL REPORTS-MISCELLANEOUS.
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5. It was, therefore, with a firm persuasion that great grievances were imposed upon the Australian Colonists by the English law of real property that Mr. TORRENS (now Sir Robert R. TORRENS, K.C.M.G.) proposed, in 1857, in South Australia, a system of his own invention, adapted from the practice attending the transfer of shipping property, which, reduced to its elementary principle, substitutes title by registration for title by deed.
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25. A certificate of title is issued to every person entitled to any estate of freehold in possession in land under the Act. Every certificate is in duplicate. One duplicate is given to the proprietor, the other is retained in the Lands Titles Office. The certificates in the office constitute the register book, which, in the words of Mr. TORRENS, is the pivot on which the whole mechanism turns. Every certificate is marked with the number of the volume and the folium of the register book. Crown Grants of land bought since the Acts came into operation are also issued in duplicate, one of which is bound up in the register book, and such grants are, in all respects, equivalent to certificates of title.
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26. So far, it will be said, the title is simplified, but how is this simplicity to be retained,-how will future complications be prevented? This is the problem which the Act endeavours ** to solve.
27. For the purpose of facilitating transactions, printed forms of transfer, mortgage, lease, and other dealings, are to be procured at the Lands Titles Office. Any person of ordinary education can, with very little trouble, learn to fill them up in the more simple cases without professional assistance. If a proprietor holding a certificate of title wishes to sell the whole of the land included in it, he fills up and executes a printed form of memorandum of transfer to the purchaser. The transfer is presented at the Office, and a memorial of the transfer is recorded by the proper officer on both duplicates of the certificate of title. The purchaser, by the recording of the memorial, stands in precisely the same position as the original owner. If only a part of the land in a certificate is to be transferred, such part is described in the memorandum of transfer, the transfer is noted on both duplicates of the original certificate; a fresh certificate is issued to the purchaser for the part transferred; and the original certificate is noted as cancelled with respect to such part. This process is repeated on every sale of the freehold, and it will thus be seen that every person entitled to a freehold estate in land under the Act has but one document to show his title, through however many hands the property may have passed, and such document vests in him an absolutely indefeasible title to the land it describes.
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28. If the proprietor wishes to mortgage or lease his land, or to charge it with the payment of a sum of money, he executes, in duplicate, a memorandum of mortgage, lease, or encumbrance, in the form provided by the Act, altered so as to meet the particular circumstances of the case. This is presented at the Lands Titles Office with the certificate of title; a memorial of the transaction is entered by the proper officer on the certificate of title and on the duplicate certificate forming the register book. The entry of this memorial constitutes registration of the instrument and a note, under the hand and seal of the proper officer, of the fact of such registration is made on both duplicates of the instrument. Such note is conclusive evidence that the instrument has been duly registered; one of the duplicates is then filed in the office, and the
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