Uniform Torrens Title

As the focus of electronic conveyancing has become a national agenda, so in the absence of a National Torrens Title Property Register, the debate is turning to a uniform Torrens Title system across State registers.

A paper has been produced by the Australian Property Law Group convened by Murray McCutcheon.

Quoting from its introduction -
The Torrens system has now been in operation for almost 150 years. It has been a great success in bringing certainty and legal predictability into land transactions. Its success is evident from the way it quickly spread from South Australia to every Australian state and territory, and then to many overseas countries.

However, while its central tenets have remained fairly constant over the 150 years, many of its incidental aspects have diverged from state to state. If anything, as time goes on, that divergence is increasing, not decreasing. This creates many practical difficulties, particularly for organizations with property interests in more than one state or territory.

The LIV Victoria has published a draft response in support of the establishment of a national best practice model. The LIV considers that every effort should be made towards uniformity. The Property Law Committee of the Property and Environmental Law Section of the LIV has provided comments upon which this submission is based and is
available to discuss any of those comments further. The LIV would be pleased to continue its participation in the project.