The object of searching for incumbrances or other matters, which are registered or enrolled, is to ascertain that the vendor's title is not adversely affected by any judgment, Crown debt, writ or other process of execution, life annuity, land charge, lis pendens, bankruptcy, deed of arrangement, disentailing assurance, deed acknowledged before the year 1883 by a married woman entitled at common law, or by registration of the title or any registered disposition under the Land Transfer Acts, 1875 and 1897 (t), or in the case of lands in Middlesex or Yorkshire, by any disposition thereof already registered (u), or in the ease of copyholds by any assurance already enrolled (x).

Searches, their object.

(o) Sug. V. & P. 538: Dart, V. &P. 454, 499, 5thed.; 516 sq., 569, 6th ed.; 1191, 1227, 7th ed.

(p) Above, pp. 165. 166, 181, 182; Mostyn v. Mostyn, 1893, 3 Ch. 376.

(q) Above, pp. 179 - 182.

(r) See above, pp. 26, 36, 57, 74.

(s) Soper v. Arnold, 37 Ch. D. 96, 14 App. Cas. 429.

(t) Stats. 38 & 39 Vict. c. 87; 60 & 61 Vict. c. 65.

With regard to judgments and Crown debts of record or by specialty in statutory form or arising from public accountantship to the Crown, all of which at one time were, when registered, charges on the debtor's lands (y), it is now provided by the Land Charges Act, 1900 (z), that a judgment (a) or recognizance, whether obtained or entered into on behalf of the Crown or otherwise, either before or after the commencement of the Act (b), shall not operate as a charge on land, or on any interest in land, or on the unpaid purchase money for any land, unless or until a writ or order for the purpose of enforcing it is registered under the Land Charges Act of 1888 (c); and this provision applies to any inquisition finding a debt due to the Crown, and any obligation or specialty made to the Crown, and any acceptance of office from or under the Crown, whatever may have been its date, in like manner as it applies to a judgment (d). Under the same Act (e) too, no entry shall be made, except under an order of the High Court, in the register of judgments established by the Judgments Act, 1838 (f), the register of Crown debts established by the Judgments Act, 1839 (g), the registers of writs of execution established by the Law of Property Amendment Act, 1860 (h), and the Judgments Act, 1848 (i), or the register of Crown process of execution established by the Crown Suits Act, 1865 (k). And all these registers, as well as the registers of lis pendens and life annuities (l), have been transferred from the Central Office of the Supreme Court to the Office of Land Registry (m). As regards writs or other processes of execution, we have seen (n) that, by the Land Charges Act of 1888 (o), every writ or order affecting land (including hereditaments of any tenure) issued or made by any Court for the purpose of enforcing a judgment (p), and every delivery in execution or other proceeding taken in pursuance of any such writ or order shall be void, as against a purchaser for value (q) of the land, unless the writ or order is for the time being duly registered against the name of the person whose land is affected in the Office of Land Registry. This enactment was extended by the Land Charges Act, 1900 (r), to every writ or order affecting land issued or made by any Court for the purpose of enforcing a judgment, whether obtained on behalf of the Crown or otherwise, and whether obtained before or after the commencement of the Act, and to every delivery in execution or proceeding taken in pursuance of any such writ or order. Registration under these Acts ceases to have effect at the expiration of five years, but may be renewed, and if renewed has effect for five years from the date of renewal (s). With regard, therefore, to judgments, Crown debts or liabilities of the kind mentioned in the Land Charges Act, 1900, and process of execution, whether at suit of the Crown or of a common person, the purchaser need only now ascertain that no writ or order affecting the land sold has been registered or re-registered within the last five years; and if this he so, and the possession of the lands sold be in accordance with the title shown, he may safely complete the purchase (t). But if any such writ or order be registered, the purchaser must not complete without the concurrence of every person entitled thereunder to any interest in the land (u). And this is the case whether such writ (x) have been followed by actual delivery in execution or not, as the effect of the Land Charges Act, 1900 (y), read together with the unrepealed provisions of the Judgments Act, 1838 (z), appears to be that a judgment shall operate as a charge on the judgment debtor's lands, when the writ or order enforcing it has been registered under the Land Charges Act of 1888 (a), actual delivery in execution being no longer a condition precedent to the lien of a judgment (b). So Crown debts of the kind included in the Land Charges Act, 1900 (c), have the binding effect on the debtor's lands which was given to them by common law or early statute (d), so soon as a writ or order for the purpose of enforcing them is registered. But as no charge now arises in the case of Crown debts of this kind, or of judgments, until registration of the writ or order, the purchaser will not be adversely affected by notice or knowledge of any of these Crown debts incurred by or any judgments against the vendor or his predecessors in title, so long as the purchase is completed before such registration takes place. Debts due to the Crown by simple contract and not arising from the above-mentioned accountantships (e) did not, under the old law, give rise to any lien on the debtor's lands until they were made of record for the purpose of enforcing them (f); and they do not now give rise to such a lien. The purchaser may therefore safely disregard these liabilities of the vendor, notwithstanding that he have notice of them; they could only affect him if his purchase were made, not in good faith, but with intent to defraud the Crown (g). With regard to unregistered process of execution against lands, it is to be observed that the same is made void only as against purchasers for value (b). The actual delivery of any lands in execution, under an unregistered writ of elegit or receiving order, still vests in the judgment creditor an estate by elegit, which is valid as against the judgment debtor himself, his representatives in law and _ assigns by voluntary conveyance (i). It appears therefore that the actual delivery in execution under unregistered process of lands sold, whether made before or pending the completion of the contract for sale, is an objection to the title, the estate sold being partly vested in some person, whom the vendor has no right to direct to convey to the purchaser (k); and it seems by analogy to the rule applied under the old law as to the sale of lands already parted with by voluntary conveyance (l), that the vendor could not enforce the specifie performance of the contract, upon the ground that conveyance to the purchaser would render the execution void. Nor could the purchaser himself be advised to rely upon this ground and accept the title, if he had notice of the execution; for it may be argued that, on the principle applied in the case of unregistered conveyances of lands in Middlesex or Yorkshire (m), of unclocketed judgments under the old law (n), and of unregistered life annuities under the Judgments Act, 1855 (o), executions actually put in force against lands under unregistered process are valid in equity as against purchasers who have notice of the same. Until this point be precisely decided, the purchaser should, it is conceived, refuse to complete in such a case, except with the concurrence of every person interested by virtue of the execution in the land sold (p).