CHAPTER XXI.

REGISTRATION, ENROLMENT, ETC.

SECTION 1.

REGISTRATION OF TITLE.

When Compulsory.—If the property sold, being of freehold or leasehold tenure, is situate within the county of London, and is not already on the register, it is now necessary (subject to the exceptions hereafter mentioned) for the purchaser to register a possessory title. If he neglects to do so, the legal estate, notwithstanding the conveyance, remains in the vendor (a).

Registration is not, however, compulsory in the case of

(1) Incorporeal hereditaments.

(2) Mines or minerals apart from the surface. (3) Leases having less than forty years to run or two lives to fall in.

(4) Undivided shares of land.

(5) Freeholds intermixed and undistinguishable from lands of other tenure (b).

(6) Corporeal hereditaments parcel of a manor and included in the sale of a manor as such (c).

(a) 60 & 61 Vict. c. 65, s. 20.

(b) Lands of mixed tenure may, if desired, be registered. See s. 67 of the Land Transfer Act, 1875.

(c) 60 & 61 Vict. c. 65, s. 24.

Moreover, it must be remembered that the Land Transfer Acts do not apply to copyholds, or to customary freeholds where admission or any act by the lord of the manor is necessary to perfect the title of a purchaser (d), or to underleases originally created for mortgage purposes (e), or to leaseholds subject to an absolute prohibition against alienation (ƒ).

Registration became compulsory in the county of London as follows, viz. :

(1) In the parishes of Hampstead, St. Pancras, St. Marylebone, and St. George's Hanover Square, on January 1st, 1899.

(2) In the parishes of Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Mile End Old Town, Wapping, St. George'sin-the-East, Shadwell, Radcliff, Limehouse, Bow, Bromley, and Poplar, on March 1st, 1899.

Camberwell, Bermondsey,

(3) In the parishes of Christ Church (Southwark), St. George the Martyr, Horselydown, Lambeth, Newington, Rotherhithe, St. Olave and St. Thomas, St. Saviour, and the detached part of the parish of Streatham, between the parishes of Lambeth and Camberwell, on January 1st, 1900.

(4) In the parishes of Battersea, Clapham, Putney, Tooting Graveney, Wandsworth, and the

(d) 60 & 61 Vict. c. 65, s. 1 (4).

(e) Ibid., First Schedule. On sales by mortgagees of leaseholds in the compulsory area, the Nominal Reversion is frequently left outstanding in order to avoid the necessity of registering.

(f) 38 & 39 Vict. c. 87, s. 11.

remainder of the parish of Streatham, on May 1st, 1900.

(5) In the remainder of the county except the hamlet of Penge (ff) and the city of London, on November 1st, 1900.

(6) In the city of London, on July 1st, 1902.

SECTION 2.

PROCEDURE FOR REGISTERING A POSSESSORY
TITLE.

Form of Application.-Application for registration with a possessory title must be made by delivering at the registry a written application in the following

orm :

LAND REGISTRY.

(Land Transfer Acts, 1875 and 1897.)

"I, A. B., of etc., hereby apply to be registered as a proprietor with possessory title of the land in the parish of shown and edged with red on the accompanying plan" (or "comprised in the accompanying deed," or any other particulars sufficient to enable the land to be fully identified on the Ordnance Map), "the value of which, with all buildings and timber thereon, does not, to the best of my belief, exceed £

Where it is desired that a particular verbal description be entered in the register, add, "I also

(ff) The hamlet of Penge was taken out of the county of London and made part of the county of Kent by Order in Council made in the year 1900.

desire the following verbal description to be entered on the register."

(Fill in the proposed verbal description.)

To be signed by the applicant or (except where a nominee is to be registered) by his solicitor.

What Documents Necessary. The application must be accompanied by either

(a) A deed or other document conferring on the applicant a title under which an application

for registration as first proprietor of land can be made; or

(b) A statutory declaration by the applicant or his solicitor in Form 2 in the First Schedule or to the like effect.

In either case the application must contain or be accompanied by sufficient particulars, by plan or otherwise, to enable the land to be fully identified in the Ordnance Map. If the accompanying document of title is a document of record, and in all cases. under paragraph (b), the application shall also be accompanied by the latest document of title (other than a document of record) in the possession or under the control of the applicant (g).

SECTION 3.

REGISTRATION OF DEeds.

When land situate within the jurisdiction of any of the local registries is registered under the Land Transfer Acts, it is exempt from such jurisdiction

(9) Land Transfer Rules, 1903, r. 18.

from and after the date of registration thereof; and no document relating to any such registered land executed, and no testamentary instrument relating to any such registered land coming into operation subsequently to such date as aforesaid, shall be required to be registered in any of the local registries (h). Where the land included in any application for registration is subject to the jurisdiction of the Middlesex or Yorkshire registries of deeds, the registration shall be deemed for the purpose of removing the land from that jurisdiction to have taken place at the beginning of the day on which the application is delivered at the land registry, and prior to any registration on that day of a memorial in the local deed registry (i). Moreover, registration of a possessory title in Middlesex is equivalent to the registration of a memorial of the conveyance (k).

SECTION 4.

MEMORIALS IN LOCAL REGISTRIES.

A memorial of a conveyance must be under the hand (1), of some or one of the grantors, or some or one of the grantees, his or their heirs, executors or administrators, guardians or trustees, attested by one witness. The witness to the memorial must be a

(h) Land Transfer Act, 1875, s. 127.

(i) Land Transfer Rules, 1903, r. 28.

(k) 54 & 55 Vict. c. 64. First Schedule, par. 14.

(1) It is no longer necessary to seal any memorials in Middlesex (see Middlesex Rules, 1892, r. 5); but a seal would still appear to be necessary in Yorkshire.