The Lyttelton Times.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 71, 15 May 1852, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times.

May 15, 185 2

We are desirous of attracting the attention of the public of this settlement to the question of the Registration of Deeds. The advantage of having a public office, in which copies may be preserved of all deeds relating to real property, is too obvious to need any argument. In old countries where the titles to land are complicated, where the original right has been lost in the obscurity of the past, and the property has been transmitted from generation to generation, through every variety of tenure, —the innumerable difficulties which frequently stand in the way of making out clear, absolute, and unquestionable titles, are matters of daily complaint, and are felt as a practical grievance in the exchange of real property. This state of affairs is one which injures all classes of the community, except the lawyers, who of course fatten upon a system which renders their services inevitable.

All these difficulties are avoided by what is called a registration of deeds- Every document conveying a title to any real property is to be brought to the Registrar's Office, where it is copied, and then returned to the proprietor; the Registrar having endorsed the paper or parchment with the date of its registry. The law would enforce the registration of deeds by making them null and void until registered, and this would be made to apply not only to direct conveyances of land, but to all indirect interests in it, —such as mortgages. If then a man wishes to purchase a piece of land, he would not be compelled, as he is now, to go to a lawyer and pay him for finding out whether the vendor had a good title to the land ; he would simply [go to the Registrar's office, and, upon the payment of a small fee, would be allowed to inspect a copy of the title deeds, and could at the same time ascertain whether there was any mortgage on the estate, or whether any other person than the professed vendor had any interest in it. The saving of trouble, doubt, fraud, and litigation under such an arrangemerrt would be incalculable. ;

Now it may be argued that .such a system could never be introduced like England, because the Registrar would be constituted a judge from whom there would be no appeal as to the validity of all titles, and a multitude of persons might thereby be deprived of their rights. No doubt there would be immense, if not insurmountable, difficulties in the way of introducing a complete registry into Great Britain. But those difficulties do not exist

in a new Colony. In a Colony like this, the law recognizes but one original title to land—namely, a conveyance from the Crown —or agents appointed by the Crown —such as the Canterbury Association. Supposing a registration of deeds had commenced as soon as this Settlement was founded, nothing could have been easier than the-work; a simple copy of all the convsvarices issued by the Canterbury Association would have been all that was necessary. And the current work which would have arisen from the sale of land * by persons who had obtained it through "the Association, would have been simple and easy. But every day's delay in introducing a registration system into the Colony, is accumulating the labour and difficulty of accomplishing it. A, may have received a conveyance from the Association, may have sold a part of the land to B, who may have borrowed money upon it from C, and let it upon a long lease to D, and then sold the . fee simple to E, whilst C may have disposed of his mortgage on it to F. All these operations are going on, rapidly creating an enormous mass of arrears of work for the Registrar which, if long kept unattended to, will soon exceed the limits of human capacity to remedy. If the work of registration in this Settlement was commenced in time, it would he possible, with small labour and at a very small expense, to effect what has probably never yet been accomplished in the world : a system by which the valid title to every inch of land in the country would be readily and immediately "'traceable back to the original proprietor, the/.Crown. Our readers are probably aware that an Ordinance for the establishment of a registration of deeds, exists in New Zealand. We shall defer to a future opportunity, an examination of this Ordinance, and of how far it would fully satisfy the requirements of this settlement: our present object is simply to attract attention to the subject* and to show how much trouble may hereafter arise, from the want of any local government at all, at the commencement. It seems to us that the Land Office of the Canterbury Association might, with scarcely any additional expense to the Colonists, have been made use of for effecting the object in view. A copy of every conveyance issued by the Association is, we are informed, preserved in the Land Office. The great mass of the work is, therefore, already done, and we do not see what would be gained by having it done over again. It is obvious that much needless expense would be saved if these records could be made available for purposes of registration ; in other words, if the office of the Registrar of Deeds was incorporated with the Land ~• Department.

X, * The large mass of matter claiming admiV&'ice to our columns this week, compels us to notice Mr. Brittan's letter with greater brevity than it deserves. We will do Mr. Brittan the justice to say, that had he attended the meeting at Lyttelton, or the real meeting,—not the sham one—at Christchurch, he could not possibly have penned it. He could not have deluded himself with the idea that the people of this settle-

ment look with indifference upon public matters. We are not inclined to join in any feeling of ridicule at the Society of Land Purchasers, which has been in its day, of much use to the settlement, nor can we on the other hand work ourselves into a state of anger at Mr. Cholmondeley's playful witticisms at its expense. According to Mr. Brittan's own showing, however, the Society of Land Purchasers consisted of less than 100 persons, out of a population of 3000. We believe, indeed, that its numbers scarcely increased after the arrival of the first ships. Its meetings certainly were as numerously attended then, as latterly, so that it had ceased to be even what it once was, a body representing the opinions of the Land Purchasers in the settlement. The public will no doubt regret to learn that' Mr. Brittan's services are to be withheld from the new society, but if the movement be based upon a right idea, the adherence or opposition of a few individuals will not affect its success. It is a question the people must decide for themselves.