Page 3709 - Week 12 - Thursday, 21 October 1993
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REAL PROPERTY (AMENDMENT) BILL 1993
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (11.08): Madam Speaker, I present the Real Property (Amendment) Bill 1993.
Title read by Clerk.
MR CONNOLLY: I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
The land titles register is an extremely important public document, containing as it does details of transactions relating to land in the ACT. Whenever anyone proposes to enter into an agreement dealing with a piece of land, such as a mortgage or a purchase, all parties to the agreement need to examine the information recorded on the title. That information, which is kept on the land titles register, must be recorded accurately and kept secure in order for our system of registration of land titles to be maintained.
The legislative basis for keeping the register is the Real Property Act 1925. The register is kept by the Registrar-General and presently consists of many volumes of certificates of title, as well as an enormous number of documents recording dealings with land. Keeping the register in its current form requires a complex manual system of noting dealings on the bound original of each certificate of title. It also requires storage of an enormous amount of books and papers. Searching for information about a piece of land is done by examining the book containing the original certificate of title, which may at any time be unavailable because someone else within the Registrar-General's Office is using it or because someone else is searching it.
The technology is now available to automate the land titles register. Indeed, some steps have already been taken to do so. Documents recording dealings with land have been placed on a database to allow fast document tracking and recovery. The way is now clear for the final step to be taken of placing the register itself on computer. The Real Property Act was drafted early this century. Its provisions relate only to a manual system of paper records, rubber stamps and handwritten notations. Many of the requirements are phrased in such a way as to exclude the use of any other form of record keeping.
This Bill contains the amendments to the Real Property Act which are necessary for completion of the automation of the register. The amendments remove references which can relate only to the manual, paper based system, such as "register book" and "stamp". They are replaced with expressions which can relate to a range of record-keeping options. These may include paper, computer records and microfiche. The Registrar-General will be able to choose the most appropriate medium for keeping each group of records. Records may also be kept partially in one medium and partially in another.
The amendments in this Bill will also provide the flexibility to enable use of new technology or developments in the future. New information, storage and reproduction methods can be utilised in the future as the technology becomes available at a reasonable cost and as they become acceptable to the legal profession. This Bill also allows for the Registrar-General to move titles information from paper to computer gradually in order to minimise disruption.
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