This 'curtain' principle finds expression in the 'notice' provision in each of the Torrens statutes abrogating the doctrine of notice in its application to purchasers who register their interest without fraud. It has not been found desirable or practical to wholly exempt purchasers from the need to make inquiries. The Torrens statutes make provision for certain prior unregistered interests to override the purchaser's registered title. All jurisdictions provide priority to unregistered short term leases, although the relevant provisions vary widely in terms of the maximum duration of lease and the scope of the interest projected. There is also variation in the way the protection is provided.
Some jurisdictions give statutory priority to the lease as an overriding or paramount interest.
The authors discuss how these varying formulations affect the scope of the protection given to short term leases and conclude that there is no rational justification for the variation. The disharmony of the statutes is due to the lack of a common rationale for according priority to leases without requiring their registration. The statutes each strike a different balance between providing incentives to register leases and reducing transaction costs for holders of short term leases. The authors propose a more principled approach to defining the terms and scope of priority for leases. The suggested approach asks what inquiries a purchaser ought to be expected to make about the interest of a person in possession.