Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-08-25
OUR INEFFICIENT RECORDING

IF THE determination of City Council that
the recorder Of deeds snail have $500
to pay additional clerks. in spite of the veto
of Mayor Moore results in speeding up the
work in the recorders Office its course will
have some justification.
Work in that Office is so far behind that
it takes six months to get conveyance papers
recorded and returned TO their owners. The
large number of transfers of real estate that
have been brought about by the forced pur-
chase of houses by tenants has increased the
work of the office, but not to such an extent
as to excuse the slownesS. not to say the
dlatorincsS, of the Office force.
The work of the Office is not conducted in
a buSineSslikc manner. 1t IL understood
that each clerk has a fixed task to perform
each day If he can do it in two or three
hours he may spend the rest Of the day as he
peases. Such system would not last
twenty four hours in any successful private
business. The clerks would be required to
be at their desks eight hours n day and 20
work while they were there.
When the Mayor vetoed the appropriation
Of $500 he knew that the recorders Office
was already overmanned for the work it had
to do. The Council. however, decided to
make the best of bad system and do some
thing to cut down the delay from which all
persons doing business with the Office suffer.
The root of the evil. however. is not In
the inefficiency of the officers who hold their
jobs BY virtue of political favor. 1t is in
the antiquated system Of keeping the records
of the titles to real estate. The people of
the state at the November election of 1915
authorized the General Assembly to change
the system. They then adopted an amend
ment to the constitution by a majority Of
4 e. Al tt1.. I,..x.
ing and guaranteeing Of land titles by the
state or by the different counties.
The plan contemplated by the amendment
would do away with all delay in transferring
title to real property and all delay In neso-
tiating loans. for the registration of the
transfer would be made and certified to when
the pupers were presented at the recorders
Office, and the transaction would be Com
pieted at once. Ii would do more than
bring an end to the delay, for 1t would in
sure the title at small expense and the
state itself would stand back Of the insur.
anCe. When once the title was guaranteed
it would no longer be necessary to search
the records back for two or three genera
tions to discover possible flaws in previous
transfers, and each succeeding transfer would
be made with expedition and with the assur-
ance that the purchaser could not be ousted
Although it is nearly five years since the
authority was conferred on the General
Assembly to adopt the land registration sys
TEN. it has not yet acted. One of the rea
sons for It's inaction lies in the fact that the
adoption of the plan would naturally throw
out Of Office hundreds Of clerks who are part
of a political machine.
If the General Assembly wishes to do
something to relieve the people who are com
PEELED to buy houses at high prices, 1t can
pass the laws contemplated by the consti.
tutonal amendment and thus reduce the
expenses incidental to a transfer of realty
| by considerable amounts, as well as ma =
| tcrially improving and simplifying the system
| Of title conveying and registering.