The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-18 00:00:00

- duty, and performing it under a great sense of responsi
bility. Therefore, precisely the same steps which you
would have to take if you sold a farm cr a particular estate
to a purchaser, you will have to take when you submit your
title to the register with the view to having it recorded on
the register. The registrar will, if requisite, have the aid
of the Court of Chancery to enable him to examine the
title ; and when I speak of the Court of Chancery your
lordships will recollect that I don't mean that to obtain the
assistance of that court it will be necessary to have recourse
to a suit for that purpose. A great part of the business of
that tribunal, by the improvements previously effected in its
procedure, has been transacted by the judges of that collet
sitting in chambers; and so, if any question of difficulty'
arises in the investigation of a title, resort will be had at
once not only to the public court but to a Chancery judge
sitting in chambers. Well, supposing the registrar to arrive
at the conclusion that the title is a marketable title and one
fit to be placed upon the register, it will then be necessary
to attend—and it is a most impotent duty—to the descrip-
tion of the estate which is to be put upon that record. And
here I admit that there is a great difficulty and great nicety.
(Hear.) The difficulty—and Ido not shrink from the
statement of it—is this : —lf I describe on this sheet of
paper an estate as belonging to a particular owner, and re-
present that his title to it is demonstrated, and therefore to
be made statutory, it might so happen that in the descrip-
tion of that estate I might include part of his neighbour's
property. I might, in fact, include in the description some-
thing that did not belong to him, Now, I beg your lord-
ships to remember that this same difficulty occurs in regard
to all the proceedings in the Irish Encumbered Estates
Court, and although that court has effectually sold and con-
veyed more, I believe, than cne-third of the whole area of
Ireland, yet I have never heard a suggestion of any error of
the kind we are now considering having been committed by
that tribunal, except in one isolated instance. But I have
sought to devise with the greatest care—and it will also be
for your lordships, if you permit this bill to go into select
committee to devise—proper safeguards against this danger.
The description is to be given to the registrar, and if
he approves of the title he will advertise that descrip-
tion. Nay, more, I require that a copy of the description
shall be served upon every one of the adjoining owners.
Each adjoining proprietor, therefore, will have an interest
in checking its accuracy. Attention will be drawn, by pub-
lic advertisement, to the fact of land described in a particu-
lar form being proposed to be put upon the register, and the
safeguards that now exist in Ireland, and which have there
been found effectual for their purpose, will be as nothing
compared with the precautions which I believe this measure
will introduce. Assuming. then, that the description has
been settled, and that it is entered on the register, the pecu-
liarity of the bill which I now present lies, among other
things, in this—that I do not require the estate so described
to be entered in any particular name, or at all to be regis-,
tered in the names of trustees. And this brings me to a dis'
tinguishing feature of the measure, to which I solicit your
lordships' attention, and which I will endeavour, as far as
I can, to make clear to all who hear me. My lords, when
the notion of a register of titles was originally broached it
was thought to be necessary that the estates should be regis-
tered merely in the names of trustees ; in other words, we all
at that day thought we could not do other than follow the
analogy of stock in the public funds. If stock in the public
funds be held upon the trusts of a marriage settlement it
must be registered in the names of the trustees of the set tle-
went; but then the beneficial owners have no security for
their property except by a practice which exists at the Bank
of England of entering what is called a caveat—that is, a
notice to the Bank not to permit a transfer of the stock with-
out giving information of the intention to effect such trans-
fer to the beneficial owners. Accordingly, down to the pro-
sent time, the only attempt at establishing a registryof titles
has proceeded on the principle of entering the land upon the
register in the name of trustees, and of then depending for
the security of all the actual owners on a system of caveats or
inhibitions, which were to be served upon the register, in
order to prevent improper dealing with the property. When,,
in 1846, your lordships appointed a select committee of your
house to consider the burdens upon land, among the com-
mittee's recommendations was one for the improvement of
the law of real property, by the simplification of titles and of
the forms of conveyance, and by the establishment of some
effective system for the registration of deeds. The only idea
of registration entertained for a lengthened period after the
date of that recommendation was the registration of assu-
rances—the registration of deeds, not of titles. In 1853 a
bill for the registration of deeds passed your lordships'
house. It came down from the other house, and 1 felt that
individually I could not take any part in the support of that
measure. The measure was referred to a select committee,
and I had the honour of bringing before that committee the
plan which I had formed for the registration of titles. But
that plan consisted merely of this—the putting of certain
names upon the registry as if they were the absolute owners
of the fee simple of the estate, and making all persons who
had partial interests in the property depend for their secu-
rity upon the system of caveats and checks. I have always
felt that that was a very imperfect mode of proceeding, be-
cause, as your lordships will observe, a registry so con-
structed gives no proof whatever of any suitable interest,
nor does it in the smallest degree facilitate the proof of title
to any equitable estate. It converts all the legal ownerships.
into trust estates, and compels you to deprive yourself of
the actual legal ownership, in order to enter it in the name
of trustees. It also provides no mode by which the register
can give evidence of the actual state of the ownership, for
if it were denied the parties registered as owners could sell
the estate, the:registrar would be under the necessity of
convening in court all the parties entitled to the equitable
estate before he could give authority to the registered owner
to dispose of the property at all. Therefore all the deal-
ings with the equitable estate would still remain a mass of
documents, without any means of registering them or ascer-
taining their effect; and you would have, as often as you
wanted to sell or mortgage any land, to go through the
same process of making an examination of the whole of the
subsequent transactions, and incurring the same expense
and difficulty—in a modified degree certainly—as attended
the original placing of the estate on the register. Recol-
lecting these great drawbacks to a registration of titles,
I have endeavoured in the present bill to provide a mode
of producing evidence of the actual state of the title from
time to time, according as it may be affected by subsequent
transactions. Let me illustrate the working of this by a
familiar example. Suppose that the first investigation of a
title brings you to the conclusion that the ownership of the
land is vested in a tenant for life with remainder to trustees
for a term of years in order to raise a jointure on the pro-
perty for the wife, with remainder to trustees for another
tern] of years to raise portions for the daughters, with re-
mainder to the sons, &c. The registrar accordingly will
place the description of the date in one registry—viz., the
registry of estates. The number under which that is en-
tered will refer to a corresponding number in another book
called the record of titles ; and in the book constituting the
record of titles will be entered exactly the result of the limi-
tations and investigations which I have described. A
change of ownership existing in fact can be most easily
ascertained. It will be transferred to the record. But sup-
pose a difficulty arising in this way. Suppose the transmis-
sion of the interest on the estate is affected by a deed or by
a will of difficult, ambiguous, or uncertain construction.
The question may be asked, will you make the registrar the
judge of the question ? Is he to determine the effect of thee
will ? Undoubtedly not. I provide, my lords,
means of having any question ascertained and conditrn
the
for that purpose ? provide for that
pdeattetireme itneeldi.tigeStutet may be said, why
nit
Because, if a deed or will make any alteration in the
should you drive a
also.rec
erd
neeern
a deed or will which is of difficult con-
struction, and which the purchaser does not desire to have
considered or determined, the registrar will make out the
record in the very language of the will, and the only
result will be to leave it unascertained. This, in point of
fact, is a recommendation instead of an objection to the
proposal. There will be a third registry, namely, a regis-
try of mortgages and encumbrances. I hope your lordships
will follow me for a few moments while I describe the mode
in which this part of the measure will operate. Suppose
an estate is put on the registry, and that on the record
of title an individual is described as tenant for life,
another is described as tenant in remainder, and that on the
registry of charges or encumbrances there is a mortgage of
£5,000. The owner is desirous of selling the estate, the
purchaser agrees on the price, a conveyance is to be effected.
geecmqvueeystain on remains
The parties may come, to the office of the registrar, either
fmade of that estate with a Parliamentary title. The re-
gistrar says that a good conveyarce can
which runs
Tin there
nesl
provide a statutory form of conveyance,e
termsthe
l
tyr themselves
registrar o r
to by
say th
whetherir attorneys.
:-11;: we, A. B. and C. D., in consideration of £5,000
grant to the purchaser and his heirs whatever
lands and li
number.ereditam ” enTtshde described in
tirnanthsfeerrreegid,satnryd
ap alunderidt he
to a
particular
the transaction is closed, in the same way in which a
transfer is made of £20,000 Consols. The transfer is
effected precisely in the same manner without any more
difficulty or impediment and without any greater lapse of
time. But, supposing the parties don't wish to have the
estate conveyed, the owner of the estate may have a certi-
ficate from the registrar—which certificate shall on one
page contain the description of the estate, on another page
the result of the recorded title—that is a simple and clear
manifestation of the existing ownership, and on the third
page a description of the charges and encumbrances affect-
ing the estate ; and together with the certificate of title the
registrar sends this simple form of conveyance. I provide
that after the certificate of title has been given there shall
be no entry on the registry with regard to the estate with-
out delivering it up, in order to prevent the possibility of
fraud, which is now very easy under the existing registries.
In this way there will be perfect certainty that in the inter-
val no change has taken place which in the slightest degree
affects the exact state of the ownership. I want to super-
sede the parchment titles to an estate ; but I should. be ex-
tremely sorry in the slightest degree to interfere with one
of the easiest modes of raising money, in which a Proprie-
tor of an estate goes to his banker and saYro;4‘ Take these
me £lO,OOO on
deeds into your possession and obtain;
thefe deposit of title
their security." That is a mortgagemsoeysil
vacoreanindentthe modeac-
commodation
security. to the lender.
the parchment deeds, which
deeds, or an equitable mortgage—severy
of raising money. Notoriety is dis Pen
afforded.
Now I provide that in
rtite of owners
are rendered supertitic'net the e! bap of the
estate may, in like anner, bedeposited With a banker, and
liweuithof