The complexity, uncertainty, and expense of the old method of conveyancing have long called for radical reform. In England, in the United States, and in Canada, land transfer reform associations exist, and are vigorously pushing for legislation in this direction; something has already been achieved, but much remains to be done. Few even of professional conveyancers would deny the truth of the statement made by the Duke of Marlborough in the Fortnightly Rerieir, that heretofore "in every country the theory of the land laws has depended on the fact that land was never intended to be dealt with by free commerce and barter, and its sale and ex change haVe at all times been surrounded with legal difficulties of every description." As prop erty is subdivided into smaller and smaller por tions, and as the number of conveyances which make up the chain of title to a piece of real estate continually increases, the difficulty and cost of establishing a clear title becomes more and more burdensome. An illustration of this is given by a New York newspaper, which points out that when the famous Jumel estate in New York was disposed of, it was divided into 13S3 pieces and sold to over 300 buyers; each of these had to engage a lawyer to search carefully through every old deed, mortgage. and record relating to the entire property, picking them out from 3500 volumes of deeds and mortgages in the office of the New York Registrar; here it is clear that 299 out of 300 parts of the total labor and expense were wasted. The same writer asserts that in New York City the amount thus expended is over one per cent. of the total value of the property transferred, and that at least half of this is unnecessary waste. So great has the task of searching and verifying titles become in York and other large cities that land title guarantee companies have been formed, which insure purchasers and mortgagees against flaws in titles; the companies make a business of searching records, and sometimes have elabo rate analyses and abstracts of real estate records, costing them many scores of thousands of dol lars.
In the United States the system of convey ancing generally adopted is that by deeds of grant, or bargain and sale; many States have enacted statutes simplifying the old method, and several prescribe an exact form of deed, defining the legal effect of the specific words of con vevancing, limiting, conditioning. and so on. It follows that the laws of the States are not uni form, but the essentials of a conveyance by deed are practically the same, requiring that it be in writing, lie signed and sealed by the grantors. be acknowledged before a notary or other officer authorized by the statutes, and be actually deliv ered. The direction which all present agitation for reform in conveyancing is taking is that pointed out by the success of the Torrens sys tem of Australia. The main principle in that system is the registration of titles as distin guished from the registration of deeds. It was introduced first in South Australia about thirty years ago by Mr. (now Sir) Robert Torrens, was eminently successful practically, and has since been adopted by the other Australian colonies. Under it the ownership passes only on the filing, in the proper registry office, of the title; thus the actual transfer and the public notice of it are simultaneous. and the records of the office cannot
he impeached by flaws in the conveyance itself, nor can a purchaser be deceived by the existence of a deed not recorded and of which lie could have no knowledge. The system of registration is a very simple one; a special folio of the record is devoted to a single piece of land, and there in one place and together are recorded all trans fers and transactions affecting the title of that piece of land or forming a charge on it; and. we repeat,"the title to that land can shift only upon the registration itself. The Government holds to the land-owner under this system much the same relation that a corporation issuing certifi cates of registered stock holds to the purchaser thereof—that is, the transfer of such stock cer tificates is made on the books of the company and takes effect only upon new entry therein. Under the Torrens system a 'Master of Titles' is intrusted with the duty of seeing that the trans fer is regular and is properly executed. A guar antee fund is established by the State to com pensate any persons injured by errors of any kind. But, the percentage of claims made from the guarantee fund to the value of the property involved has been very small—less, it is said, than the one-hundredth part of one per cent. The great merit of this system is that, once established, it makes title certain and absolute, and obviates research in ancient conveyances. No doubt there is expense and difficulty in chang ing from the old to the new system of convey ancing, but the results attained are great. In Canada the system has been tried—thongh in a limited and imperfect form—in Toronto, and there is a strong agitation for its universal adoption under a compulsory law. In England a Land Transfer Reform Bill was introduced in 1875 by Lord Cairns, and passed, but in a muti lated and altogether unsatisfactory form; in 1882 a second act was passed simplifying the art of conveyancing and leading the way toward a general reform; in 1889 Lord Salisbury's Govern ment introduced a bill making the Torrens sys tem compulsory, which was defeated only after its third reading and by a very small majority. It seems probable that such a reform bill will pass before many years. In the State of New York an act was passed and went into effect in January, 1891, which provided for a reformed or block scheme of indexing conveyances to supplant the old system of consecutive registration of deeds indexed only by the names of the parties thereto. This is also a step in the direction of the Torrens system of registration and transfer by titles. The Torrens system has been adopted in Massachusetts, Illinois, and several other States.
Consult: Leonard A. Jones, Forms in Con veyancing and General Forms (5th ed., Indian apolis, 1899) ; Wolstenholme, Forms and Prere dents Adopted for Use Under the Conveyancing Acts (5th ed., London, 1891) ; Sheppard, The Touchstone of Common Assurances, etc. (Amer. ed., Philadelphia, 184041) ; Greenwood, Munitat of the Practices of Conveyancing (8th ed.. Lon don, 1R91) ; Elphinstone, Introduction to Con veyancing (5th ed., London, 1900) ; Hunter, The Dominion COIlVeya neer (Toronto, 1893).