Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/523

 Correspondence put a deed on record, registered the title, con veyed to a purported bona ﬁde purchaser, and the title has passed out of the real owner without any recourse whatever to any fund or against anybody. This is a result that actually can happen under the law.

487

are included within this statutory desig nation, and that the posting and publish ing of the summons and notice of object of action, as required by the Torrens Law, is sufﬁcient notice to them, and

ments prevented my attendance at the

that the same is not inimical to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Con

last annual meeting of the New York

stitution of the United States, which

Unfortunately

professional

engage

State Bar Association, and consequently

provides that no person shall be deprived

I could not answer the gentleman then

of his property without due process of law. But the gentleman who cites this

and there, and it seems that there was no one present sufficiently familiar with

the Torrens Law to expose the absurdity of this supposititious case. The vice of this so-called argument arises from the fallacy of the premises. I think it was Josh Billings who once remarked, "It is better not to know so

supposititious case, the like of which has never arisen during the past ﬁfty years, while the Torrens Law has been in suc cessful operation in many countries and states, involving the disposition of

The sad adventure

property aggregating many millions of dollars in value, fails to discriminate between owners of record and persons

of the unfortunate owner of real estate who goes to Europe for a six months’

having a claim not of record. He also makes use of this ambiguous language —

vacation and then returns, only to ﬁnd that during his absence some one else has become possessed of his property, and that he has no redress, could not

property." What does he mean by this phrase? If he wishes to convey the

much than to know so many things that are not so."

possibly happen, by the wildest stretch of imagination, under the wise provisions

and safeguards of the Torrens Law. In the ﬁrst place, it must be borne in mind, as I have already pointed out in previous articles, that there is a clear distinction in the Torrens Law between the record owner or lienor and the person who merely claims some right, interest or lien in the premises, which is not

“a man may own a piece of vacant

idea that he owns the property by virtue

of a deed or other instrument duly recorded, then I can only say that his hypothetical conclusion is wholly in correct and unfounded. The Torrens Law distinctly provides that "all persons, having or claiming any right or interest in, or lien upon the property or any part thereof, as shown by the Examiner's Certiﬁcate of Title," which includes all record owners, must be speciﬁcally

Individuals of the latter

named as parties defendant, and ﬁnal

class are included in the statutory desig nation “All other persons, if any, having any right or interest in, or lien upon the property aﬁ'ected by this action, or any

judgment and decree of title registration cannot be entered until after all such

of record.

portion thereof." The United States Supreme Court, by its unanimous de cision in American Land Company v. Zeiss, (219 U. S. 44), has unanimously declared that all such persons, having any right, interest or lien not of record,

record served protect answer

owners have been personally and given an opportunity to their interests by interposing to the Complaint, or otherwise.

In the second place, assuming that the property owner who is suﬂiciently

wealthy to make a six months’ sojourn in Europe ﬁnds on his return that his