REGISTER, REGISTRATION, REGISTRY. In feudal times, the owner of land, or at least the person immediately entitled to the profits arising from it, was usually the occupier, and his right was notorious among his neighbours ; for in their presence possession or seism of the land was delivered to him upon the spot by the lord ; they signed the instrument, which was evidence of the grant, and they formed part of the lord's court, in which the grant was usually recorded. [CON VEYANCINO.] But this simple method of conveyance was in the course of time found insufficient for the more complicated circumstances of society. Land by improved cultivation became more productive, and the profits arising from it were devoted to more extensive purposes then when a large proportion of every great estate was waste. Leases of land then became more common, and as the lessee was of course in actual possession of the premises, possession ceased to be sufficient evidence of absolute property in land. Purchasers there fore now require not only proof of possession and production of the instrument by virtue of which the apparent proprietor holds the land, but also an investigation of the tille-deeds, or documents which form the history of the land ; lest any one should hereafter be produced which should be destructive of the claim of the supposed owner, and therefore of the title of those who derive their rights from him. Thus the evidence of a right to land, or to the profits arising from land, con sists partly of possession, partly of the facts disclosed by the written documents or title-deeds relating to it, and hence partly again of the possession of the title-dewla themselves.
But there are many interests in land which exist without either of these protections. For instance, A, who is supposed by all his neigh bours to be the owner of an estate which ho derives from his ancestors, and has occupied since his father's death, mortgages the land to B for a sum far less than its value : he delivers the title-deeds to B, but (as is usual) retains the possession and entire enjoyment of the land by paying regularly the interest on the mortgage, and being supposed well able to pay the principal money when demanded. A then mortgages the estate a second time to C, to whom he gives notice of the prior incumbrance to B. and thus accounts for the absence of the title-deeds, which C investigates in B's hands. Here we observe that C has an interest in the land, without the security which either possession or the holding of the title-deeds givte. A has the one, B the other. We will suppose the two sums for which the estate is mortgaged to be nearly equal to its value. A borrows a further sum upon it from D, whum he informs of Be mortgage, but not of C's ; and in case of dis pute the Court of Chancery has to decide between the mortgagees. This would be an easy tank if the rule of equity were undeviating, that priority of time gives superior right (qui prior est tempera petior eat jure); but the rule that where equities are equal, law shall prevail, destroys the simpler maxim. The two last mortgagees, C and D, have,
we may suppose, only an equitable interest in the land, A having granted it at the time of the first mortgage to a trustee for many hundred years, in order that the stipulations of the mortgage-deed shall be fulfilled. [alIoncecert.] This is called creating a term of years, and it has the effect of protecting the estate from soy acts done subse quently to the creation of the term, and inconsistent with the objects for which it exists. Those terms which have not merged or otherwise ceased are called outstanding terms. New if, in the case supposed, D pays off B, and takes an assignment of his mortgage and of the out standing term ; if, to use the technical phrase, he " tacks" B's security to his own, he unites in himself equal equity with C, and also the legal right which the term gives him ; and then he takes precedence of C, who loses the sum which he had advanced, unless indeed he too can find and obtain the assignment of an outstanding term created by one of A's ancestors antecedently to B's. But the case may be more complicated, and the means of fraud still further extended. A dies ; and then comes to light a settlement made by his father, to which A was himself a party, which shows that A was entitled to the estate only during his life, that the course in which it should go after his death had been clearly defined, and that it had been conveyed, by his father and himself, to trustees for this purpose. This discovery destroys the estates of B, C, and D alike. These cases, or cases par taking of the character of these, whether the result of ignorance, or accident, or fraud, are frequent sources of litigation : they arise from the facility afforded for the concealment of deeds by the present system of conveying land ; and besides the direct injury which they do to the individuals involved in them, they produce a feeling of insecurity concerning the titles to land, which, joined to the difficulty, often the impossibility, of proving titles, especially by descent, renders the alienation of land or the raising of money upon it difficult and costly. Again the advantage derived from obtaining an assignment of outstanding terms causes a conveyancer to Investigate the various transfers and transmissions of them with as much care as the title to the fee ; and as it may be safest to obtain the assignment of as many outstanding terms as can be procured, and especially of the most ancient, there are a variety of claims to an interest in an estate, all to be proved by the seller, and by the purchaser. The deed too assigning the term is usually distinct from the conveyance of the fee, and is often of great length. Hence vast additional expense is incurred in the sale and mortgaging of land.