1. Cadastral Survey & Land
Registration
LAND REGISTRATION PART
BY: TESFAYE K.

2. CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION TO LAND REGISTRATION
1. Concepts of Land Adjudication and Registration
Land Adjudication
 Is the process of final and authoritative determination of the existing rights
and claims of people to land
 Adjudication is the first stage in the introduction of registration of title.
 It is a process whereby existing rights in parcels of land are finally and
authoritatively determined.
 The adjudication does not alter existing rights in land and it does not create
new rights

3. Cont……
 It establishes:
 What right exists,
 By whom they are exercised, and
 To what limitations they are subject.
 In result, it produces certainty and finality into land records
 The register data becomes very accurate as data is investigated in the field and
checked by all adjoining parties.
 It is a compulsory process where usually those who fail to claim for their rights or
refuse to cooperate with the process will lose them

4. Cont…..
 The core question of the adjudication is "Who owns what?”
and all land is adjudicated, area by area, and parcel by parcel.

5. Cont…
Land Registration:
 Land registration is defined as the process of recording legally recognized interests
in land
 These interests include, but are not limited to: ownership, access, inheritance,
occupation and use.
 The information that is considered as vital to any land registration system includes
the title number, land reference number, the size, land use, location, and
ownership.
 A good land registration system should, therefore, contain and safeguard these
components, and regularly update the same with a high degree of accuracy and
reliability.

6. Evolution & of Land Registration
 The historical development of land registration can be seen as parallel to
the development of a more open land market within a country.
 Transfer of land which is controlled by land registration can be written or
unwritten, registered or un-registered
 Land registration underwent several stages before developing into what it
is today.

7. Evolution of Land Registration

8. Cont….
Oral Agreement/Symbolic Transfer Stage
 In a paperless and close-knit society transactions are based on oral agreements.
 Symbolic acts (seller gives or breaks a leaf, twig, or blade of grass) were,
thereafter, performed to complete the transfer witnessed by the local
community members.
 In the ancient times, this is seen as sufficient guarantee and evidence of
transfer.
 This would work where the society is close-knit, the transfers remain
minimal, and where the symbolic acts are performed in the presence of
witnesses but where the community grows larger, less coherent, and memories
start to fade; thus trustworthiness can no longer be sustained

9. Cont…..
Writing Witness Stage
 When communities began to use paper the elite started to prefer written evidence to that
of witness testimony to land transfers.
 Parties would go before a judge or specialized writer, known as a notary, who would
declare that there was a new owner
Private Conveyancing Stage
 Later when written conveyancing became a norm, people started drafting more
comprehensive deeds which would be handed over to the new owner/buyer after the
sale.
 After several transfers, the eventual owner could have a stack of documents and usually,
before the next transfer could be made, these documents would have to be checked by a
legal profession to ascertain authenticity.
 The seller would prove ownership by possession of the previous transfers

10. Cont….
 Shortcomings of Private Convincing
 Fraudulent seller would fake loss of deed
 sell to more than one person.
 Lacking of Property description
 Property in question may not be discovered because private conveyancing is
not public instead it is meant to be a secret amongst the parties transaction

11. Cont…….
Registries Stage
 It was later agreed that instead of leaving the documents in the hands of
owner of the land their storage could be entrusted in the hands of an
independent third party.
 This would limit the chances of loss and falsification.
 Throughout the many phases of development and in different parts of
the world this independent authority has been either notaries, judges,
courts, lawyers, tax authorities, or specialized lands offices or land
registries made up professional land registrars or a combination of other
authorities.

12. Classification of Land Registration
 Land registration can be classified depending on the functions or the design and
its historical origins
 It has been observed that currently, there are only two forms of land registration
internationally.
 These are the deed registration or the title registration
 Registration of deeds is a system whereby a register of documents is maintained
relating to the documents of transfer (deeds) of rights in land.
 Registration of title, however, is a system where a register of ownership of land is
maintained based upon the parcel rather than the owner or the deeds of transfer

13. Title Registration Systems
 The land registry registers the right and the rightful claimant, and thus, creating legal rights and
consequence.
 With this registration, the title or right is created
 In this system, one can immediately see who the owner of the property is because the register
reflects the correct position on the ground thus fulfilling the mirror principle.
 The register is at all times the final authority and the State accepts responsibility for the validity
of the transactions registered there under
 There is no need for historical investigations beyond the register (curtain principle) and whatever
is registered is guaranteed by the State.
 This implies that if a third party incurs loss out of reliance on the register he/she will be
compensated by the State; thus the insurance or guarantee
principle
 Simple procedures with simple forms are put to use and dealing in land
becomes as quick and certain as dealing in good

14. Cont…….
 When a registrar enters the name of a new owner in the register, the previous
owner is automatically dispossessed.
 The title in this case is indefeasible; to achieve such high and unquestionable
validity of title the registrar must be an active on
 Another important aspect of title registration is that it is parcel (or land) based,
and thus in this case some writers have argued that it is the land that is
registered as opposed to the deed system, that registers deeds.
 There is emphasis on parcel identification which has to be unambiguously
described in a plan that forms part of the title documentation.
 Title registration systems can further be classified into three categories; English,
German-Swiss and the Torrens.

15. Cont…….
The English Group
 In addition to the features described above, this system uses existing large
topographical maps combined with general boundaries.
 Theoretically, conveyancing here can be done by parties without assistance
from attorneys/legal experts because they just need to fill in the prescribed
forms (conveyancing instruments) that are relatively simple.
 Practically however, legal experts come in handy due to financial
complications related to mortgaging, taxation, and other land control and
regulatory rules; thus only few people do their conveyancing without legal
experts