Torrens Land Registration System

A land registration system invented by Robert Torrens and in which the government is the keeper of the master record of all land and their owners.

In the Torrens system, a land title certificate suffices to show full, valid and indefeasible title.

A stated in Manor Investments v Ross 31 Real Property Reports 3d 104 (ABQB, 2000), itself borrowing from Fels v Knowles 1906 26 New Zealand Law Reports 604):

"The Torrens system provides a state guarantee of registered interests and an assurance fund to compensate owners whose interests are (for example) defeated due to an error made at the Land Titles Office. The operation of the system has been described thus (in Fels v Knowles as): the cardinal principle of the statute is that the register is everything, and that, except in cases of actual fraud on the part of the person dealing with the registered proprietor, such person, upon registration of the title under which he takes from the registered proprietor, has an indefeasible title against all the world. Nothing can be registered the registration of which is not expressly authorized by the statute. Everything which can be registered gives, in the absence of fraud, an indefeasible title to the estate or interest."

Used in Australia and several Canadian provinces (such as BC).