Registered Title

Abstract

The concept of a register of land ownership was popularised in the nineteenth century by a non-lawyer, Robert Torrens. Working in a deeds registry in South Australia, he was shocked by the complication of traditional conveyancing, especially when large areas of land were simply the subject of government grants to settlers in places where there were no lawyers. His idea, which worked efficiently in Australia, spread through the common law world. In England, at the start of this century, Lloyd George’s radical Liberal government attempted to introduce such a register; this vision included a ‘new Domesday’, a register of land ownership as a first step towards a tax on land owning.