Certificate of Title

A simple explanation:
Imagine a huge book kept at the Land Titles Office, in which every block of land in the State of Victoria has its own page. Of course, such a book would have many volumes and many pages (folios). If you wanted to identify a particular block of land, you would find out its volume and folio number, and use these numbers to look up the relevant page. To find out who owns the land, you would simply turn over the page, and see whose name was last added to the page. This person is the owner.

In order to show that they own land, people are given a copy of their page in the book. This becomes known as the "duplicate", and it also shows the names of the most recent owner. Each time ownership of the property changes, the "duplicate" is sent to the Land Titles Office, and it is endorsed with the name of the new owner, and the original kept at the Land Titles Office is updated in the same way.

This is a very basic view of how the system of Torrens Title operates in Victoria. Of course, in reality the process is much more involved than this, and there are numerous exceptions to the concept of ownership through registration.

Types of Certificate of Title:
In the 1980's the Land Titles Office began computerising titles, and the process will continue until the whole of the Register Book has been computerised. In the meantime, there will be different forms of title; some are large stiff paper documents written in calligraphic style, while most are single page A4 computer generated paper sheets, light blue in colour.

What Information Does The Title Contain?:
The title contains basic details about the property concerned, sufficient to property identify the land, and to direct the reader to the plan of subdivision of which the land forms a part. The title will also include details of any encumbrances registered against the title. It is important to note that there are is often a number of "off-title"; encumbrances over land, and so checking of the title alone will not necessarily reveal all encumbrances .

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