The commissioners propose to register every document transferring any estate in land or creating a charge upon it, except such as relate to copyholds, and leases for not more than twenty-one years, accompa nied by possession. Thus contracts con cerning land (with certain limitations), liens upon it, judgments, crown debts, de crees in equity, pending suits, and appeals, should all form matters of registration. They recommend that all deeds should be registered at length ; indeed, that the original deeds should be deposited at the Registry, and that (unless in special cir cumstances) office-copies of them shall be admitted as evidence. They propose that the register should not be classified ac cording to the names of individuals, but that to the registered deed relating to an estate a symbol shall be attached indica tive of that estate, under which symbol all subsequent documents affecting it will be The system admits of open ing a fresh series of entries, or, in other words, commencing a new title for any portion of the estate which may be sepa rately conveyed, refereuces being made from each to the other. And thus again many separate estates might be united under one symbol. Indexes should be prepared both of the symbols and of per sons : and to facilitate reference, Eng land and Wales should be divided into districts, usually corresponding in limits with the counties. Separate indexes should be made to wills, judgments, &c.
It is the opinion of the commissioners that if a register is established, it ought to be taken as sufficient notice of the docu meets registered; and that, on the other hand, default of registration ought not to be remedied by any proof even of actual notice. With this view they recommend
that persons should have liberty to re gister contracts, to enter caveats during the interval between the execution of the deed and its registration, and inhibitions which shall prevent owners of estates who enter them from dealing with the estates pending such inhibition. A bill founded on this report was brought into Parliament (1846), but after a report by a Committee of the House of Commons, it was dropped.
The Act 1 & 2 Victoria, e. 110 (abol ishing arrest on mesne process, except in certain cases) provides (§ 19) that no judgment of the superior courts or decree of the courts of equity shall affect lands unless a memorandum of such judgment, &c., shall be registered with the senior master of the Court of Common Pleas, who shall enter it under the name of the person whose estate is to be affected by it. The 2 & 3 Viet. c. 11, enacts that these registered judgments shall not be valid for a longer space than five years, but it provides that the entry of them may be renewed ; it also enacts that no pending suit (lis pendens) shall affect the purchaser or mortgagee with notice, unless a similar memorandum is regis tered by the same officer, under the head of the person whose estate is affected by it, and the entry must be renewed every five years ; and, thirdly, the Act requires crown debtors to be registered in the same office, and provides means for ob taining and recording their discharge from their liabilities to the crown ; but the Act does not require the re newal every five years of the entry in this case.
(Second Report of Real Property Commissioners ; and the Works therein cited ; Tyrrell's Suggestions for the Laws of Real Property.)