Page 4322 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 1993
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For people like Mr Berry, who does not understand much, the Torrens title system is essentially one which provides that, instead of having documentation to prove one's ownership of land - that might relate to a series of documents that go back a number of years demonstrating that a person has what is described as a good root of title - one has in the ACT, I think exclusively now, a system which provides for documentation of the kind that proves title to be available in a single place, in usual form in a single document, a single certificate of title which conclusively proves that a person has a particular block of land or a particular interest in real estate.
It was only a year or so ago - very recently anyway - that the last piece of freehold land in the ACT was acquired, which means that the whole of the ACT is consolidated under this one system. That is not, unfortunately, the case in some other places - at least, not when last I was aware of it. In some other jurisdictions, such as New South Wales, it has long been the case that old system title remained a very real part of the way in which land tenure was organised. Old system title basically consists of a person having to prove that they own land by producing a series of deeds and documents proving that over the last 40 years, I think, that title can be traced. In the event that someone cannot trace their title back in history for the full 40 years, one has a certain problem in proving that one has ownership of a particular piece of land. The Torrens title system, giving a high degree of certainty and convenience to users of the system, is a great advantage of our present ACT arrangement. It means that the whole picture can be seen at any one time in the single place, that is, the Land Titles Office just across the square from us here.
These two Bills, the Real Property (Amendment) Bill and the consequential provisions Bill, extend the great benefit of the Torrens title, that is, the certainty and the convenience of that system, to its next logical step, a system whereby Torrens title can be ascertained not by looking at particular written documents on pieces of paper but through the benefits of computer technology in a much more convenient format. The Bills provide for the automation of the Land Titles Office to allow for land titles to be placed on computer so that information can be conveyed more quickly, it is possible for people to have access in a more convenient format, and changes updating the title can occur much more rapidly.
There are many advantages, of course, with these arrangements. Searches can be conducted by going to the Land Titles Office and, in due course, they will be conductible from the offices of solicitors or people conducting conveyances. People will have access to the Land Titles Office through on-line computers. Speed will also be a great advantage in those circumstances. Relatively instantaneous access will be quite important in making sure that the sequence of events, which is very important in dealing with titles, is maintained. There will not be the problem under this new arrangement, once it is fully up and running, of having documents not available because the particular single title deed is being searched by another person at the Land Titles Office or is somewhere being dealt with by officers of that office.
There is also an end to the problem that solicitors sometimes face of trying to search so-called unregistered dealings, where one goes to the Land Titles Office to conduct some transaction and has to search also through the dealings which have been lodged but not yet registered. Obviously, registration in the present format is a cumbersome process requiring some time and some use of the valuable time of people who are highly trained in this area and who obviously could be doing better things than putting stamps on thick pieces of paper.
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