LAND TITLE AND TRANSFER. The ex isting.system of land transfer is a long and tedious process involving the observance of many formalities and technicalities, a failure to observe any one of which may defeat ti tle. Even where these have been most care fully complied with, and where the title has been traced to its source, the purchaser must buy at his peril, there always being, in spite of the utmost care and expenditure, the pos sibility that his title may turn out bad. Yeakle, Torrens System 209.
For the past 50 years the project of sim plifying land titles and transfer has been agitated in England. For the purpose of con sidering the best method of so doing, a royal commission was appointed in 1854, and its report in 1857 recommended a limited plan of registration of title. In 1862 the Lord Westbury Act provided for the registration of indefeasible titles, but they were confined to good marketable titles. In 1875 the Lord Cairns Act was passed, which provided for the permissive use of a scheme for the reg istration of title, and was a modified form of the Torrens system, but, as the friends of that system pointed out, the provisions of the bill were not stringent enough, and compara tively little use has been made of it.
This act was amended in several particu lars by the Land Transfer Act, 1897. In addition to these changes this amendatory act of 1897 makes some very vital changes in the real estate law of England; it pro vides as follows: "Where real estate is vest ed in any person without a right in any oth er person to take by survivorship, it shall, on his death, notwithstanding any testamen tary disposition, devolve to and become vest ed in his personal representative or repre sentatives from. time to time as if it were a chattel real vesting in them or him." This applies to any real estate over which the tes tator "has a general power of appointment." Probate and letters of administration may be granted in respect of real estate only, al though there is no personal estate. Subject to the powers, rights, duties, and liabilities imposed in the act, the "personal representa tives hold the real estate as trustee for the persons by law beneficially entitled thereto, and those persons shall have the same power of requiring a transfer of real estate as per sons beneficially entitled to personal estate have of requiring a transfer of such personal estate." "All enactments and rules of law relating to the effect of probate or letters of administration as respects chattels real, and as respects the dealing with chattels real before probate or administration, and as respects the payment of costs of admin istration, etc., of personal estate and the pow ers, rights, etc., of personal representatives in respect of personal estate, shall apply to real estate so far as the same are applicable, as if that real estate were a chattel real, etc., save that some or one only of such joint per sonal representatives" cannot sell or trans fer the real estate without the authority of court "In the administration of the assets of a person dying after the commencement of the act, his real estate shall be administered in the same manner, subject to the same liabili ties for debts, costs, and expenses, etc., as if
it were personal estate, provided that noth ing herein contained shall alter or affect the order in which real and personal assets re spectively are now applicable in and towards the payment of funeral and testamentary ex penses, debts, or legacies, or the liability of real estate to be charged with the- payment of legacies." In granting letters of admin istration the court "shall have regard to the rights and interests of the persons interested in the real estate, and his heir-at-law, if not one of the next of kin, shall be equally enti tled to the grant with the next of kin." At any time after the death of the owner "his personal representative may assent to any devise contained in his will, or may con vey the land to any person entitled thereto as heir, devisee, or otherwise, . . . either subject to a charge for the payment of any money which the personal representatives are liable to pay, or without any •such charge ; and on such assent or conveyance, subject to a charge for all moneys (if any) which the personal representatives are liable to pay, all liabilities of the personal representatives in respect of the land shall cease, except as to any acts done or contracts entered into by them before such assent or conveyance." After the expiration of a year from the own er's death,• "if the personal representatives have failed on the request of the person en titled to the land to convey the land to that person,-the Court may, if it thinks fit;- on the application of that person and after notice to the personal representatives, order that the conveyance be made, or in case 'of'registered land, that the person so entitled be register ed as proprietor of the land, either solely or jointly, with the personal representatives. The production of an assent by the personal representatives to the registrar is authority to him to register the transfer. The per sonal representatives, etc., may, in the ab sence of any express provision to the con trary . . . with the consent of the per son entitled to any legacy . . . or to a share in his residuary estate, etc., appropri~ ate auy part of the residuary estate in or towards satisfaction of that legacy or share," placing their own valuation on "the whole or any part of the property of the Aeceased per son," first giving notice to all persons inter ested in the residuary estate. In case of registered land such appropriation is author ity to the registrar to register the person to whom the property is appropriated as pro prietor. The act provides that the title to registered land, adverse to or in derogation of the title of the register proper, shall not be acquired by any length of possession.