Torrens title
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Torrens title

Torrens title is a land registration and land transfer system in which a state creates and maintains a register of land holdings, which serves as the conclusive evidence (termed "indefeasibility") of title of the person recorded on the register as the proprietor (owner), and of all other interests recorded on the register.

Ownership of land is transferred by registration of a transfer of title, instead of by the use of deeds. The Registrar provides a Certificate of Title to the new proprietor, which is merely a copy of the related folio of the register. The main benefit of the system is to enhance certainty of title to land and to simplify dealings involving land.

Its name derives from Sir Robert Richard Torrens (1812–1884), who designed, lobbied for and introduced the private member's bill which was enacted as the Real Property Act 1858 in the colony of South Australia, the first version of Torrens title enacted in the world. Torrens based his proposal on many of the ideas of Ulrich Hübbe, a German lawyer living in South Australia. The system has been adopted by many countries and has been adapted to cover other interests, including credit interests (such as mortgages), leaseholds and strata titles.

The Torrens title system operates on the principle of "title by registration" (granting the high indefeasibility of a registered ownership) rather than "registration of title". The system does away with the need for proving a chain of title (i.e., tracing title back in time through a series of documents). The State guarantees title, and the system is usually supported by a compensation scheme for those who lose their title due to private fraud or error in the State's operation.

In most jurisdictions, there will be parcels of land which are still unregistered.

The Torrens system works on three principles:

At common law, the vendor of land needs to show his or her ownership of the land by tracing the chain of ownership back to the earliest grant of land by the Crown to its first owner. The documents relating to transactions with the land are collectively known as the "title deeds" or the "chain of title". This event may have occurred hundreds of years prior and could have had dozens of intervened changes in the land's ownership. A person's ownership over land could also be challenged, potentially causing great legal expense to land owners and hindering development.

Even an exhaustive title search of the chain of title would not give the purchaser complete security, largely because of the principle, nemo dat quod non habet ("no one gives what he does not have") and the ever-present possibility of undetected outstanding interests. For example, in the UK Court of Chancery case Pilcher v Rawlins (1872), the vendor conveyed the fee-simple estate to P1, but retained the title deeds and fraudulently purported to convey the fee-simple estate to P2. The latter could receive only the title retained by the vendor—in short, nothing. However, the case was ultimately decided in favor of P2, over P1. The courts of equity could not bring themselves to decide against a totally innocent (without notice) purchaser.

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