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Rh misappropriated goods, he has to find out where they are. This is usually a matter of considerable difficulty. By the time they have reached the hands of a bonâ fide purchaser all chance of their recovery by the true owner is practically at an end. But with land the case is far otherwise. A dispossessed rightful owner never has any difficulty in tracing his property, for it is immovable. All he has to do is to bring an action for ejectment against the person in possession. For these reasons, among others, any attempt to deal with land on the simple and unsuspecting principles which obtain in regard to goods would be fraught with grave risks.

Apart from very early and primitive social conditions, there appear to be only two ways in which the required certainty as to title to land can be obtained. Either the purchaser must satisfy himself, by an exhaustive scrutiny and review of all the deeds, wills, marriages, heirships and other documents and events by which the property has been conveyed, mortgaged, leased, devised or transmitted during a considerable period of time, that no loophole exists whereby an adverse claim can enter or be made good—this is called the system of private investigation of title—or the government must keep an authoritative list or register of the properties within its jurisdiction, together with the names of the owners and particulars of the encumbrances in each case, and must protect purchasers and others dealing with land, on the faith of this register, from all adverse claims. This second system is called Registration of Title. To these two alternatives may perhaps be added a third, of very recent growth—Insurance of Title. This is largely used in the United States. But it is in reality only a phase of the system of private investigation. The insurance company investigates the title, and charges the purchaser a premium to cover the expense and the risk of error. Registration of deeds is an adjunct of the system of private investigation, and, except in England, is a practically invariable feature of it. It consists in the establishment of public offices in which all documents affecting land are to be recorded—partly to preserve them in a readily accessible place, partly to prevent the possibility of any material deed or document being dishonestly concealed by a vendor. Where registration is effected by depositing a full copy of the deed, it also renders the subsequent falsification of the original document dangerous. Registration of deeds does not (except perhaps to a certain extent indirectly) cheapen or simplify the process of investigation—the formalities at the registry add something to the trouble and cost incurred—but it prevents the particular classes of fraud mentioned.

The history of land registration follows, as a general rule, a fairly uniform course of development. In very early times, and in small and simple communities, the difficulty afterwards found in establishing title to land does not arise, owing to the primitive habit of attaching ceremony and publicity to all dealings. The parties meet on the land, with witnesses; symbolical acts (such as handing over a piece of earth, or the bough of a tree) are performed; and a set form of words is spoken, expressive of the intention to convey. By this means the ownership of each estate in the community becomes to a certain extent a matter of common knowledge, rendering fraud and mistake difficult. But this method leaves a good deal to be desired in point of security. Witnesses die, and memory is uncertain; and one of the earliest improvements consists in the establishment of a sort of public record kept by the magistrate, lord or other local authority, containing a series of contemporary notes of the effect of the various transactions that take place. This book becomes the general title-deed of the whole community, and as long as transactions remain simple, and not too numerous, the results appear to be satisfactory. Of this character are the Manorial Court Rolls, which were in the middle ages the great authorities on title, both in England and on the continent. The entries in them in early times were made in a very few words. The date, the names of the parties, the name or short verbal description of the land, the nature of the transaction, are all that appear. In the land registry at Vienna there is a continuous series of registers of this kind going back to 1368, in Prague to 1377, in Munich to 1440. No doubt there are extant (though in a less easily accessible form) manorial records in England of equal or greater antiquity. This may be considered the first stage in the history of Land Registration. It can hardly be said to be in active operation at the present day in any civilized country—in the sense in which that term is usually understood. Where dealings become more numerous and complicated, written instruments are required to express the intentions of the parties, and afterwards to supply evidence of the landowner’s title. It appears, too, that as a general rule the public books already described continue to be used, notwithstanding this change; only (as would be expected) the entries in them, once plain and simple, either grow into full copies of the long and intricate deeds, or consist of mere notes stating that such and such deeds have been executed, leaving the persons interested to inquire for the originals, in whose custody soever they may be found. This system, which may be regarded as the second stage in the history of land registration, is called Registration of Deeds. It prevails in France, Belgium, parts of Switzerland, in Italy, Spain, India, in almost all the British colonies (except Australasia and Canada), in most of the states of the American Union, in the South American republics, in Scotland and Ireland, and in the English counties of Yorkshire and Middlesex. Where it exists, there is generally a law to the effect that in case of dispute a registered deed shall prevail over an unregistered one. The practical effect is that a purchaser can, by searching the register, find out exactly what deeds he ought to inquire for, and receives an assurance that if, after completion, he registers his own conveyance, no other deeds—even if they exist—will prevail against him.

The expenses and delays, not to mention the occasional actual losses of property through fraud or mistake, attendant on the system of making every purchaser responsible for the due examination of his vendor’s title—whether or not assisted by registration of deeds—have induced several governments to establish the more perfect system of Registration of Title, which consists in collecting the transactions affecting each separate estate under a separate head, keeping an accurate account of the parcels of which each such estate is composed, and summarizing authoritatively, as each fresh transaction occurs, the subsisting rights of all parties in relation to the land itself. This system prevails in Germany, Austria, Hungary, parts of Switzerland, the Australasian colonies, nearly the whole of Canada, some of the states of the American Union, to a certain extent in Ireland, and is in course of establishment in England and Wales. The Register consists of three portions:—(1) The description of the land, usually, but not necessarily, accompanied by a reference to a map; (2) the ownership, giving the name and address of the person who can sell and dispose of the land; and (3) the encumbrances, in their order of priority, and the names of the persons for the time being entitled to them. When any fresh transaction takes place the instrument effecting it is produced, and the proper alterations in, or additions to, the register are made: if it be a sale, the name of the vendor is cancelled from the register, and that of the purchaser is entered instead; if it be a mortgage, it is added to the list of encumbrances; if a discharge, the encumbrance discharged is cancelled; if it is a sale of part of the land, the original description is modified or the plan is marked to show the piece conveyed, while a new description or plan is made and a new register is opened for the detached parcel. In the English and Australian registries a “land certificate” is also issued to the landowner containing copies of the register and of the plan. This certificate takes the place more or less of the old documents of title. On a sale, the process is as follows: The vendor first of all produces to the purchaser his land certificate, or gives him the number of his title and an authority to inspect the register. In Austria and in some colonial registries this is not necessary, the register being open to public inspection, which in England is not the case. The purchaser, on inspecting this, can easily see for himself whether the land he wishes to buy is comprised in the registered description or plan, whether the vendor’s name appears on the register as the owner