Page:An essay on the transfer of land by registration.djvu/26

 Entry of memorial of any transfer charge, or other dealing, upon the folium of the register appropriated to the land dealt with, constitutes registration.

Registered estates are held subject to such charges, estates and interests as are notified on the appropriate folium of the register, and endorsed on the certificate of title held by the proprietor, but free from all other charges, estates, or interests whatsoever. They take priority among themselves according to the date of registration, and over all unregistered estates or interests whatsoever, except when registration has been obtained by fraud, and the registration of a dealing (bonâ fide) for value is indefeasible, even though it be from or through a party who may have obtained registration fraudulently.

Indefeasibility is indispensable if the dependent or derivative character of titles, out of which, as has already been demonstrated, all the evils of the English system of conveyance originate, is to be got rid of; and as, despite every precaution, a mistake may be made in granting indefeasible titles, it becomes necessary to provide compensation for persons who may possibly thereby be deprived of land. For this purpose a fund is created by a contribution of Jd. in the pound sterling, levied upon the value of land when first brought under the system, and upon the value of land transmitted by will, or upon the intestacy of a registered proprietor.

This almost inappreciable sum has been found far more than sufficient for the object, insomuch that a large assurance fund has accumulated in the colonies in which the system has been for any time in operation.

This principle of compensating a rightful owner by a money payment, instead of allowing him to recover the land, commends itself to our sense of natural justice, as contrasted with the principle of English law, which in such case would place the rightful owner in possession, not only of his inheritance in the land itself, but also of the capital of parties who, innocent of all fraudulent intent, may have invested