Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 4.djvu/291

LAND TRANSFER REFORM. 275 although the evidence he produces might not be sufficient to compel an unwilling purchaser to take the land, the examiners report the case to the Registrar and recommend that notices be served on all parties in interest, and also upon the owners and occupants of adjoining land, if necessary, and that advertisement be made more or less extensively, as the nature of the case may demand. If no objection be made by filing a caveat within the time prescribed by the Registrar, the land is brought under the provisions of the Act, the certificate granted to the applicant, and an indefeasible title is vested in him. If a caveat be filed within that time, the Registrar suspends action until it be withdrawn, or until he receives a notice of the final judgment of the Supreme Court upon the question raised. One great advantage in this method is that it affords a ready way of clearing titles of technical imperfections. Titles, as every experienced conveyancer is aware, are not to be divided into two classes only, the good and the bad. There is a large intermediate class, to which perhaps the great majority of them belong, where the title is good enough for all practical purposes, but where, generally through the stupidity of unskilful scriveners, slight defects, purely technical in their nature, and of no sort of conse- quence from any reasonable point of view, faint blemishes that a court of last resort would summarily dispose of, have become what are called '* clouds on the title." These insignificant defects, when duly magnified by some quibbling examiner, are made to appear formidable enough to the timid investor; but their princi- pal use is to enable the once eager purchaser, whose ardor has suddenly cooled, to refuse to comply with the contract made in good faith for the purchase of the land over which these mysteri- ous " clouds," hitherto not visible to the naked eye, now so darkly and portentously hang. To real-estate owners, who have long suffered from this state of things, the Australian system will prove a priceless boon. If it did only this and nothing more it would be worth all the cost of its adoption here. It would bring into the market estates which are not now salable, and would clear the title once for all from all these " cobwebs of the law." This certificate issued by the Registrar is not simply a certifi- cate, but an absolute guaranty of title by the Government. A small fee, paid in each case by the land-owner on making his