29 VICTORIA, No. 301. Commissioner of titles. Power to appoint a deputy in case of illness or absence. The word "annuity" shall mean a sum of money payable periodically and charged on land under the operation of this Act by an instrument hereunder. The word "charge" shall mean the instrument creating and charging an annuity. The word "annuitant" shall mean the proprietor of an annuity or charge. The word "grantor" shall mean the proprietor of land charged with the payment of an annuity. The word "encumbrances" shall include all prior estates interests rights claims and demands which can or may be had made or set up in to upon or in respect of the land. The word "instrument" shall include a transfer lease mort- The word "addition" shall mean the description as to resi- The word "transmission" shall mean the acquirement of the The word "person" shall include a corporation whether aggregate or sole. The word "judge” shall mean a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria. The expression "examiner of titles" shall mean one of the examiners hereby appointed and any other person being a barrister-at-law or an attorney or solicitor who shall hereafter be appointed as such examiner under this Act. The word "sheriff" shall include the sheriff of Victoria so far as concerns land within his bailiwick, and the sheriff of any circuit district so far as concerns land within his bailiwick, and any deputy sheriff or person appointed to execute any writ of fieri facias. The expression "commissioner for taking affidavits" shall mean a commissioner for taking affidavits in the Supreme Court of Victoria. APPOINTMENT OF OFFICERS. 5. The present commissioner of titles shall be and he is hereby appointed the commissioner of titles under this Act. The Governor in Council may upon any vacancy occurring in such office by death resignation or removal appoint a person to supply such vacancy. 6. In case of illness or absence the Governor in Council may appoint a person to act as the deputy of any officer appointed by or under this Act during such illness or absence; and such deputy while acting under such appointment shall have all the powers and perform all the duties of the officer of whom he may be deputy. 7. The present solicitors shall henceforth be examiners of titles; 29 VICTORIA, and one of such solicitors being the senior solicitor shall be called the chief examiner; and the present senior assistant registrar-general Examiners of shall henceforth be the registrar of titles under this Act. No. 301. titles and regis trar. other and re 8. The Governor in Council may appoint one or more assistant Appointment of registrar or registrars of titles, and any other officers necessary for moval of all carrying out the provisions of this Act; and may remove any com- officers. missioner examiner registrar or any other officer, whether by this Act appointed or hereafter to be appointed, and supply any vacancy thereby or otherwise occurring. cially noticed. 9. All courts judges and persons acting judicially shall take Certain signajudicial notice of the signature of the commissioner of titles (herein-tures to be judiafter called the commissioner) and of the registrar of titles (hereinafter called the registrar) and of any assistant registrar of titles (hereinafter called an assistant registrar). 10. The registrar shall cause to be prepared a seal bearing the seal of office. impression of the Royal Arms and having inscribed in the margin thereof the words "Office of Titles Victoria ;" and all certificates of title and other documents purporting to be sealed with such seal and to be signed by the registrar or by an assistant registrar shall be admissible as evidence without further proof. sistant registrar. 11. Every thing by this Act appointed or authorised or required Powers of asto be done or signed by the registrar may be done or signed by any assistant registrar; and shall be as valid and effectual as if done or signed by the registrar himself. and examiner of 12. The commissioner shall not, nor shall any examiner of Commissioner titles under this Act, directly or indirectly practise as a barrister or not an attorney or solicitor or participate in the fees of any other person practise. so practising. 13. Every registrar and assistant registrar shall before exe- Oaths of office. cuting any of the duties of his office take the following oath before a judge : I A.B. do solemnly swear that I will faithfully and to the me God. 14. The Governor in Council may appoint persons to be sworn Appointment of valuators under this Act and at pleasure annul the appointment of sworn valuators. any such person. Every such person shall within fourteen days from his appointment and before making any valuation under this Act take the following oath before a judge : I A.B. do solemnly swear that I will faithfully and honestly AS TO BRINGING LAND UNDER THIS ACT. 15. The grants in fee or for years of all Crown lands remaining Crown lands reunalienated at the time of the commencement of this Act shall be alienated to be maining un No. 301. registered under this Act. 29 VICTORIA, in duplicate and in addition to proper words of description shall refer to a map of the land on the scale at present used or on such other scale as the Governor in Council may from time to time direct; and after payment of the fee for the grant and of the contribution to the assurance fund (in cases wherein such contribution shall be payable) shall be delivered to the registrar, who shall register the same in manner hereinafter directed. Such registration shall be deemed and taken to be an enrolment of record of the grant; and such enrolment shall relate back to the day of the date of the grant, and either part of the grant when registered under this Act shall be sufficient evidence of a duly enrolled grant of the land therein described to the person therein named on the day of the date thereof. As to grants for public purposes. Lands alienated in fee before the 16. At the time of the registration of every grant in fee to two or more persons in joint tenancy for any public purpose, the registrar shall endorse thereon and on every subsequent certificate of title the words “no survivorship" and shall sign his name thereto. 17. Land alienated in fee by Her Majesty before the second Real Property day of October One thousand eight hundred and sixty-two may be brought under the operation of this Act by an application in the form in the Second Schedule hereto; which application may be Second Schedule. made by any of the following persons (that is to say): Act" may be brought under this Act. (1.) The person claiming to be the owner of the fee simple either in law or in equity: (II.) Persons who collectively claim to be the owners of the fee simple either at law or in equity: (III.) Persons who have the power of appointing or disposing of the fee simple: (IV.) The person claiming to be the owner of the first estate of freehold if the owner of the first vested estate of inheritance shall consent to the application: (v.) Trustees for sale of the fee simple but if any previous consent to their selling be requisite the persons required to give such consent to consent to the application: (VI.) The guardian of any infant or the committee of the estate of any lunatic or person of unsound mind unable to govern his estate so however that the application be made on behalf of such infant lunatic or person and the certificate of title be directed to issue in his name: Provided always that a mortgagor shall not be entitled to make such application unless the mortgagee shall consent thereto; nor a mortgagee unless in the exercise of his power of sale and unless the certificate of title shall be directed to issue in the purchaser's name nor a married woman unless her husband shall consent thereto and the application shall be acknowledged by her in the manner hereinafter mentioned as to the acknowledgment of instruments (except she shall be entitled to the land for her separate use or has a power to appoint the same). Provided also that the attorney of any corporation, howsoever and wheresoever incorporated, whether already constituted or hereafter to be constituted by a power of attorney under a seal purporting to be the common seal of the corporation giving the power may make such application for or on behalf of the corporation of which he is the attorney, and may make the requisite declaration to the best of his knowledge information and belief, and 29 VICTORIA, may subscribe the application in his own name. No. 301. to be dealt with 18. The registrar of titles shall refer such application to an How application examiner of titles, who shall report on the title and submit the same when no regisand the papers to the commissioner for his direction; and if it shall tered dealing. appear to the commissioner that no transaction affecting the land has been registered under any general registration Act concerning the registration of instruments relating to or affecting land, he shall direct the registrar to bring the land under the operation of this Act forthwith by registering a certificate of title. ing. 19. If it shall appear to the commissioner that any such trans- And when a action as aforesaid has been registered and that all encumbrances registered dealaffecting the land (excepting such as are hereinafter mentioned as not requiring special notification) have been released, or that the owners thereof have consented to the application, or that any encumbrance (not being a mortgage the owner whereof shall not have consented to the application) may be specified in the certificate of title and continue outstanding, the commissioner shall direct notice of the application to be advertised once at least in one newspaper published in the city of Melbourne or circulating in the neighbourhood of the land, and to be served on any persons named by him; and shall appoint a time not less than fourteen days nor more than twelve months from such notice or from the advertisement or the first of such advertisements (if more than one) on or after the expiration of which the registrar shall, unless a caveat shall be lodged forbidding the same bring the land under the operation of this Act. 20. [Repealed and new provision substituted by 33 Vict. No. 353 s. 11," Transfer of Land (Dower),” post.] brought under 21. If before the registration of the certificate the registrar Land to be shall not have received a caveat forbidding the same, he shall bring the Act unless the land under this Act by registering in the name of the applicant caveat received. or in the name of such person as may have been directed in that behalf a certificate of title to the land in the form in the Third Schedule hereto. may lodge 22. Any person claiming any estate or interest in the land Third Schedule. described in the advertisement may, before the registration of the Parties interested certificate, lodge a caveat with the registrar in the form in the caveat Fourth Schedule hereto forbidding the bringing of such land under Fourth Schedule. this Act. Every such caveat shall be signed by the caveator or by his agent, and shall particularise the estate or interest claimed; and the person lodging such caveat shall if required by the registrar support the same by a statutory declaration, stating the nature of the title under which the claim is made, and also deliver a perfect abstract of the title to such estate or interest No such caveat shall be received unless some address or place within the present limits of the city of Melbourne shall be appointed therein as the place at which notices and proceedings relating to such caveat may be served. 23. The registrar upon receipt of such caveat shall notify the If caveat be resame to the applicant, and shall suspend proceeding in the matter ings suspended. ceived proceed 4 No. 301. Caveat to lapse 29 VICTORIA, until such caveat shall have been withdrawn or shall have lapsed as hereinafter provided or until an order in the matter shall have been obtained from the Supreme Court or a judge. The applicant may if he think fit summon the caveator to attend before the Supreme Court or a judge in chambers to show cause why such caveat should not be removed;(a) and such court or judge may, upon proof that such caveator has been summoned, make such order in the premises either ex parte or otherwise as to such court or judge may seem fit. 24. After the expiration of one month from the receipt thereof unless proceed- such caveat shall be deemed to have lapsed, unless the person by whom or on whose behalf the same was lodged shall within that time have taken proceedings) in a court of competent jurisdiction to establish his title to the estate or interest specified in the caveat, and shall have given written notice thereof to the registrar, or shall have obtained and served on him an injunction or order of the Supreme Court or a judge restraining him from bringing the land under this Act. A caveat shall not be renewed by or on behalf of the same person in respect of the same estate or interest. ings taken within A judge may re- duction of title of an application under the Act. Applicant may Documents of 25. After an application has been made to have any land brought under the operation of this Act, a judge may require all persons having in their possession or custody any deeds instruments or evidences of title relating to or affecting the land the subject of such application to produce the same at the office of titles to the commissioner and to any examiner of titles for his inspection, upon such terms and subject to such conditions and for such charge or fee as the judge making the order may think just and shall fix. All applications to be made to a judge under this section may be made by summons in chambers by the applicant owner or by the person to whom he may have directed a certificate of title to be issued. 26. An applicant may withdraw his application at any time prior to the registration of the certificate; and the registrar shall in such case return to the applicant or to the person appearing by the application to be entitled thereto all evidences of title lodged in support of the application; but in such case, if the caveator shall have been put to expense without sufficient cause by reason of such application, he shall be entitled to receive from the applicant such compensation as a judge on a summons in chambers shall deem just and order. 27. Upon registering a certificate of title, the registrar shall clude other pro- endorse upon the last material registered document lodged in sup title which in (a) Under the analogous section 81 of 25 Vict. No. 140, a judge in chambers had no jurisdiction to entertain a summons, by a person seeking to bring property under the Act, calling upon a caveator to show cause why his caveat, forbidding the bringing of such property under the Act, should not be removed. That section authorised such a summons only in the case of caveats against dealing with property already under the Act.-In re Williamson, 2 W. W. & a'B. (L.), 110. (b) The Legislature contemplates the commencement of legal proceedings as being sufficient to prevent the caveat from lapsing. The issue, by the caveator, of a writ of ejectment is sufficient. In re The Caveat of Slack, ex parte Winder, 5 A.J.R., 83. (c) A judge in chambers has no jurisdiction, upon summons, to make an order, under this section, restraining the registrar from bringing land under the Act. To obtain such an order, the caveator must either bring an action or file a bill.-In re Power, 6 W. W. & a'B. (L.), 81. See, however, Hodgson v. Hunter, 3-A.J.R., 13. (d) All persons having any claim to the land must have notice of the summons to produce.In re "Transfer of Land Statute," ex parte Morgan, 4 A.J.R., 117. |