Opinion ID: 1283283
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Standard for granting a repurchase application

Text: The foreclosure process established by the Land Registration Law makes good title out of bad. Thus, the State received perfect title [5] following foreclosure, thereby terminating the long history of gaps in the chain. If the State were now to sell the parcels, the buyer would take perfect title. However, the buyer would have to pay the State a fair purchase price. Repurchase is another story. Like a foreclosure sale, repurchase also passes perfect title. But the repurchaser, rather than paying market value, pays only the nominal amount of the foreclosure judgment  which in this case is a mere $8.30 plus interest. See AS 34.10.050. We believe that the Territorial Legislature did not intend that a repurchaser should get the benefit of perfect title without paying for it. Instead, especially at this late date, repurchase can be allowed only when the title is good at the onset. That is, the repurchaser has the burden of establishing that, but for the foreclosure, the chain of title leading to him is perfect. Registration pursuant to the Land Registration Law was a procedure to compile information. Unlike a quiet title action, registration was not a procedure to make good title out of bad. An owner who did register his land had no better title than he had before he registered. Therefore, it makes no sense to allow a chain of owners who did not register their land, and in fact abandoned it for perhaps 45 years, [6] now to obtain better title than they would have, had they properly registered it. However, the statutes never explicitly required that a prospective registrant have perfect title. In fact, the Territory or State may have never before challenged a statement of ownership filed pursuant to the Land Registration Law. Why, then, should the State refuse to recognize the imperfect title of a repurchase applicant? The answer is that timely filing of a registration statement did not entitle a registrant to any new rights; if the title was full of holes, it remained full of holes. In contrast, granting an application to repurchase bestows a valuable new right  perfect title  for a nominal fee. Thus, the State is justified in requiring that an applicant's claim be indisputable, before granting him that valuable right.