ABSTRACT
Prior to 1925, the conveyancing system in England and Wales was under considerable strain. On the one hand, purchasers of land were faced with many difficulties when trying to establish whether any other person had rights or interests in that land and, on the other, an owner of an equitable interest might find that an interest was destroyed by a simple sale to a purchaser who was unaware of its existence. To meet both of those problems, it was decided to move towards full title registration wherein all titles and many interests in land would be recorded and guaranteed by the State. It was recognised, however, that this mammoth task had to proceed in stages and that a set of transitional provisions was needed. The result was the Land Charges Act (LCA) 1925 (now the LCA 1972), intended to operate for only some 30 years. Unfortunately, it was not until 1 December 1990 that all land in England and Wales became subject to compulsory first registration. The introduction of compulsory first registration of title and the widening of those events which must ‘trigger’ first registration (s 1 of the LRA 1997) will ensure that the great majority of titles become registered early this century (over 85% currently are registered). Yet, the fact that title registration has taken so long to be introduced has only multiplied those defects that were inherent when the land charges scheme was introduced as a ‘temporary measure’.
