The Torrens System

TOPIC: THE TORRENS SYSTEM
Contents:
 Introduction
 The origins
 Characteristics
 The fundamental principles
 The significance
 Difference between Torrens System and Deed System
INTRODUCTION
What is the Torrens System?
 Is a land registration and land transfer system, in which a state creates and maintains a register of land holdings, which
serves as the conclusive evidence (termed “indefeasibility”) of title of the person recorded on the register as the
proprietor (owner), and all other interests recorded on the register.
 Ownership of land is transferred by registration of a transfer of title, instead of by the use of deeds. The Registrar
provides a Certificate of Title to the new proprietor, which is merely a copy of the related folio of the register. The
main benefit of the system is to enhance certainty of title to land and to simply dealings involving land.
 The system is reliable, simple, cheap, speedy, and suited to the needs of the community.
 The system does away with the need for proving a chain of title (i.e., tracing title back in time through a series of
documents).
 The State guarantees title, and the system is usually supported by a compensation scheme for those who lose their
title due to private fraud or error in the State’s operation.
 On the first registration of land under the system, the land is given a unique number which identifies the land by
reference to a registered plan. The folio records the dimensions of the land and its boundaries, the name of the
registered owner, and any legal interests that affect title to the land.
 A transfer of ownership of a parcel of land is affected by a change of the record on the register.
 The registrar has a duty to ensure that only legally valid changes are made to the register. To this end, the registrar will
indicate what documentations are required to be satisfied to change ownership.
 A change of ownership may come about because of a sale of the land, or the death of the registered owner, or as a
result of a court order.
 Any interest which affects or limits the ownership rights of the registered owner, such as a mortgage, can also be
noted on the register.
THE ORIGINS
 Sir Robert Richard Torrens, Registrar-General and Treasurer of the colony of South Australia and later a member of the
House of Assembly, lobbied for many years for a new title system to improve the currently cumbersome, slow, and
expensive system of land transfer. He was largely responsible for propelling the new Bill through Parliament, enacted
in 1858 as the Real Property Act 1858.
 The system laid out in this bill became known as the Torrens title system and was based on a central registry of all the
land in the jurisdiction of South Australia.
 Torrens drew ideas from the system of registration of merchant ships in the United Kingdom, experience gained from
his years of working as a customs official. He also used many of the ideas incorporated in the Act from Ulrich Hubbe, a
German lawyer living in South Australia at that time, who had expert knowledge of the Hanseatic registration system
in Hamburg.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TORRENS SYSTEM

 The Register is everything (Fels v Knowles (1972) 46 ALJR 68)- whoever desires to deal with the alienated land may discover
the history of the land title concerned by examining the register.
Important characteristics:
i. Details of dealings with land must be officially registered on the title to that land.
ii. Registration alone gave validity to the dealings by creating a legal estate or interest in land.
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iii. All transactions must be affected by the use of prescribed forms.
Important elements of the Torrens System:

1. Official record
2. The Register
3. Security of the registered proprietor
4. Guarantee by the State
THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

Based on 2 or 3, depending on jurisdiction:
i. The Mirror
ii. The Curtain
iii. The Assurance or Insurance
i. The Mirror Principle

 The register reflects all the facts that is material to the proprietor’s title in the land-
 The name of the proprietor of the land
 The particular of the alienated land
 The area and location of the land
 The survey plan and boundary limits of the land
 These information are found on the register and the land title (EDR-Extract from the District Register)
 Assist prospective purchaser, charge or lessee to obtain the relevant particulars of the land as well as the encumbrances
created over the land.
ii. The Curtain Principle

 Emphasizes the intending purchaser or anybody who is interested need to look “behind” or beyond the register.
 Sufficient to look at the Register to obtain the particular of the land (In Brunei, you do a “search” of the Register)
 Gibbs v Messer (1891) AC 248:
 The objective of the Torrens system is: “to save persons dealing with the registered proprietors from the trouble
and expense of going behind the register in order to investigate the history of the author’s title to satisfy
themselves of its validity”. [Lord Watson]
iii. The Assurance of Insurance Principle

 Provides for compensation of loss if there are errors made by the Registrar (applicable only in certain countries e.g., some
statutes in USA: not in Brunei or Malaysia).
 “A state guarantee is an integral part of a system of registration of titles”- Sir Robert Torrens
THE SIGNIFICANCE
Advantages of the Torrens System:
1. Security and certainty of titles is official and guaranteed.
2. Minimizes delays and expenses.
3. Simplification of titles and dealings.
4. Accuracy
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5. Indefeasibility of title.
TORRENS V DEEDS SYSTEM

 Deed registration is a land management system whereby all-important instruments which relate to the common law
title to parcels of land are registered on a government-maintained registered, to facilitate the transfer of title. The
system had been used in some common law jurisdictions and continues to be used in some jurisdictions. It is being
replaced by Torrens system in many jurisdictions.
 In contrast to the Torrens system in which is basically the one who registered in a land registry as owner of a piece or
parcel of land has an indefeasible title of the land, deeds registration system is merely a registration of all-important
instruments related to that land.
 In order to establish one’s title to the land, a person (or usually their purchaser’s attorney) will ascertain, for example:
 All the title documents have been properly executed,
 “A chain of title” is established, i.e., the proper ownerships from granting of the land from the government to the
current owner,
 There are no encumbrances on the land that probably will harm the title of the land.
Torrens System Deeds System

i. Passing of title Title passes upon registration Title is passed upon execution, signing,
sealing & delivery
ii. Accuracy Simpler, easier and secured Filled with uncertainty; complex,
expensive and cumbersome
iii. Security Registration is everything and it is Registration is not compulsory, despite
compulsory for any dealing on the land the availability of some form of
to be registered recording
iv. Guaranteed by the state Loss suffered due to defects in Not guaranteed by the state since
registration, the state will be responsible transactions are made personally
for such errors cause by its officers between the parties
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TOPIC: THE TORRENS SYSTEM

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TORRENS SYSTEM

Important elements of the Torrens System:

THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

i. The Mirror Principle

ii. The Curtain Principle

iii. The Assurance of Insurance Principle

TORRENS V DEEDS SYSTEM

Torrens System Deeds System

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