H.B. LAND TITLES.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 143, 2 June 1936, Page 6

H.B. LAND TITLES.

In our Saturday’s issue appeared a statement from the Hawke’s Bay District Land Registrar with regard to the progress made in restoring from destruction during the 1931 earthquake the official records of titles to land within his district. In it he told us that in all it is estimated that there are something like 30,000 separate private freehold ownerships and that with respect to about 26,000 of these new records had been createdThis has involved a very great deal of careful and laborious investigation and has been made possible only by the co-operation of the owners concerned and their solicitors. The fact, however, still remains that even now, nearly five years after the' necessary authorising Act was passed, there are still some 4,000 titles as to which official records are either nonexistent or incomplete. The strange feature about this is that all this great work of restoration has been and is still being done by the department at little or no cost to the owners, yet there are so large a number of them who have failed to take advantage of the practically gratuitous, though really invaluable, service the Land Transfer Office is ready and anxious to do for them.

What probably very few of these owners realise is that until their titles are entered upon the register it will be impossible to complete any dealing with the land, whether oy sale, lease, mortgage or even by transmission under a will. That, however, is the case, and it would be just as well for owners who have so far been remiss in applying for new documents of title to understand this and the inconvenience and delays, with possible serious loss, to which they must inevitably be put unless they comply with the prescribed and comparatively simple formalities for getting new titles. Especially should it be noted that the process will be very much easier for a present owner than for those who would have to go through it after his death. It is also to be understood that the sooner a new title is obtained the sooner will it become completely unassailable under Government guarantee. It is, indeed, quite inexplicable why there arc so many thus negligent of their own interests, and it might be well if a time limit were placed upon the provision of new titles except at a full charge to the owners for the trouble entailed. No doubt most solicitors will have done their duty by apprising clients of the advantages to be gained, but those who have not should recognise the urgent need for assisting the Registrar by hunting up all documents of title in their own keeping and nofiyting those concerned.