The Wrangell sentinel., 1953-12-18
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 THROUGH THE SENTINEL
 PERISCOPE
Land Registration


 Territory at the moment, and prom isls to be for some time to come is the Land Registration Act en- acted by the Republican-controlled lg58 Legislature which requires every real property owner in Alas ka to register his property in the office of the Recorder of the re- cordiug district in which the pro- perty is located by December 31 of this fateful year of 1853.
 Recorders in Alaska are U. S. Commissioners and those officials handling the recording work in Southeast Alaska, at least, being patriotic Americans but not patri- otic enough to work for nothing, have agreed on minimum fee of S2.25 for recording the registra- tion and 90 cents per 100 words over 300 words in the document. In other words. anything up to 300 words will cost you S2.25. If any body wants to multiply that by the number of real property owners in Alaska they will doubtless come upI with quite a tidy sum.
 The Land Registration Act, good old Chapter 134 of the 1853 ses- sion laws. which probably will go down in Alaska history as the most potent sleeper" ever slipped through a Territorial Legislature, was enacted as a substitute for the lg49 property tax act which was found invalid by the courts and re- pealed by the last Legislature. The thought back of the act was to keep alive registration of lands out side of incorporated municipalities as provided for in the old property tax law. The purpose of that being to determine who owned property in the Territory and from whom it might be acquired for development purposes. For years there were par cells of land in Alaska lying idle which nobody knew just who own ed including sometimes heirs who never heard of it but who actually had some legal title to it. That was one good feature of the old property law, to ascertain title, and was the intent of the current Land Registration Act to keep that fea- ture active via Chapter 194.
 The Catch
 The catch is that while the re- pealed property tax act specifically exempted properties within munich paIities as they already are record ed under the municipal property tax law, the new land registration act omits the provision. It says: I '.It shall be the duty of each own CT of real property in Alaska :" and makes no exemptions.
 The result as Commissioner Cor don Gray of Juneau has put it, is "an awful mess"
 Land Commissioner w. A. Chip perfield, former district forest ranger at Petersburg, whose office was created by the act, says (see story elsewhere in today's paper) that he isn't going to enforce the provision of the law which asses ses a $5 penalty if the owner fails to register. He explains, CD that the Legislature didn't set up sui ficient funds to enforce the law, and (2) he's going to ask the next Legislature to amend the act to ex- clude property within city, school and public utility districts as they already are recorded.
 Tom Says
 An, but not so the venerable opinion of Attorney General J. Ger aid Williams, through his assistant Thomas B. Stewart.
 Assistant Attorney General Stew art, chairman of the First Division Democratic committee, in an opin- ion to Commissioner Chipperfield says
 Section 4 Chapter 134, sLA 1853. specified that it shall be the duty of each owner of real property in Alaska , to make and file reg is ration statements, with certain exceptions not relevent to the inn mediate problem. It is clear from this. language that no distinction between the owners of land within and without incorporated town and g, hool districts as to the duty of filing a statement could be made by executive determination, the l. gis.ature having stated explicitly that each owner has the duty to so register his ownership"
 The Assistant Attorney General gees on at some more length, but the result is that the Attorney Gen. eral says the laws the law and the Land Commissioner says he can't enforce it.
 They Won't at $225
 We wouldn't want to argue with such a legal mind as the Attorney General but we suspect he'd be pretty hard pressed to come III with a decision that the Territorial Legislature had the authority tC