Sec. 91. Registry Acts and Land Titles Acts, p. 151. Sec. 92. Registration of deeds and registration of titles, p. 154, Sec. 93. Mortgages under the land titles system, p. 156. Sec. 94. The registered estate and its priority, p. 162. Sec. 95. Registration and priorities of mortgages, p. 166. Sec. 9G. Executions and mechanics liens, p. 169. Sec. 97. Unregistered interests, notice and fraud, p. 173. Sec. 98. "Legal" and "equitable" mortgages, p. 182. Sec. 99. Remedies of the mortgagee, p. 185.

Sec. 91. Registry Acts and Land Titles Acts

In the foregoing chapters the essential features of the contract of mortgage both at law and in equity have been considered, some account has been given of equitable mortgages, and the question of priorities in equity and under the Registry Act has been discussed. It is chiefly with regard to the question of priorities that the Registry Act affects the law of mortgage, by providing the means of recording deeds and other documents affecting the title to land and by enacting that with certain exceptions a registered document shall have priority over an unregistered document. Generally speaking the statute does not in other respects make any change in the nature or incidents of the contract of mortgage or in' the legal or equitable principles governing the subject.

In addition, however, to the system of registration of deeds under the Registry Act, there is in Ontario under the Land gages that it seems desirable to outline the main principles underlying the statutes, particularly with regard to their effect upon the distinction between the legal estate and equitable interests in land and upon the question of priorities between different mortgagees. These main principles are to a certain extent susceptible of being discussed without reference to the variations existing in the statutes of the different provinces. For the present purpose the systems of registration of titles may be treated as one system (i) and the statutes may be comprehensively referred to as the Land Titles Acts.

Titles Act (a) a system of registration of titles. Similarly in Manitoba there are two alternative systems under the Registry Act (6) and the Real Property Act (c) respectively, conveniently designated by statute as the "old system" and the "new system." In Saskatchewan (d), Alberta (e) and the Northwest Territories (f) there is but one system-that of registration of titles-under the Land Titles Act in force in each of these jurisdictions. In British Columbia there is under the Land Registry Act (g) a system of registration of titles with many special features. In the maritime provinces the old system of registration of deeds prevails (h).

The various statutes above mentioned which provide for the registration of titles have to such a degree qualified the application of the legal and equitable rules relating to mort-

(a) R.S.O. 1914, c. 126. This system was introduced in 1885. The statute is based on the English Land Transfer Act, 1875, with some modifications.

(b) R.S.M. 1913, c. 172. This statute is similar to the Ontario Registry Act.

(c) R.S.M. 1913, c. 171. The new system was introduced in 1885. The statute is based on the Victorian statute.

(d) Sask. statutes, 1917 (2nd sess.), c. 18.

(e) Alta. statutes of 1906, c. 24.

(f) R.S.C. 1906, c. 110. The system was introduced by the Territories Real Property Act, being 49 V. c. 26, in effect on the 1st of January, 1887. This statute was in 1894 replaced by the Land Titles Act, 1894, being 57 & 58 V. c. 28, in effect on the 1st of January, 1895. The Territories then included the present provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta so that when these provinces were created in 1905 they had a system of registration of titles already in operation. The statutes in force in Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories are substantially similar to the Real Property Act of Manitoba but follow the Australian statutes more closely.

(g) R.S.B.C. 1911, c. 127. For an account of the history and operation of the system in British Columbia, see Re Shotbolt, 1888, 1 B.C.R. part 2, 337.

(h) In Nova Scotia a Land Titles Act was enacted in 1904, and in New Brunswick a Land Titles Act was enacted in 1914, but little has been done to bring these statutes into effective operation. They are based on the Ontario statute but are much slighter.

It is impossible, however, for anyone to read the statutes in question without being struck by the deplorable diversity of law in Canada on the subject of registration of titles. Apart from the many special features of the British Columbia statute and the fact that the Ontario statute is based upon an English original while the Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Northwest Territories statutes are based on an Australian model, even the last mentioned group of statutes exhibit a diversity of arrangement and language which tends to obscure their common origin and their essentially similar character. Attention is drawn in the following pages to some of the more important differences between the statutes (j). Some observations made by J. E. Hogg (k), the learned commentator on the Australian Torrens statutes, are worthy of special mention. Expressed very briefly,his suggestions are (1) to abolish the double kind of title in British Columbia and Ontario, (2) to eliminate from the Ontario statute the special treatment of leases and the express recognition of unregistered transactions, (3) to provide a statutory form of mortgage and to separate the register of deeds from the register of titles in British Columbia, (4) to eliminate from the Manitoba statute (I) the provisions preventing the acquisition of title by possession, (5) to add to the Northwest Territories statute provisions for realizing on mortgages through the land titles office, (6) to repeal the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick statutes, and, the outstanding differences having thus been adjusted, (7) to draw a new uniform statute on the western rather than the Ontario model.

(i) This is specially true of the statutes in force in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, based on the Australian Torrens acts, and I am glad to acknowledge my indebtedness to the elaborate exposition of these Canadian statutes contained in Douglas J. Thorn's The Canadian Torrens System. The work in question does not purport to discuss systematically the British Columbia Land Registry Act or the Ontario Land Titles Act, which are drawn on different lines from the other statutes above mentioned. For the sake of brevity in referring to the parallel provisions of the various statutes of Ontario and the western provinces I have adopted in this chapter a brief method of statutory citation by reference merely to the names of the provinces and the numbers of the sections, except in Sec. Sec. 91 and 93, where the titles and chapter numbers of the statutes are mentioned.

(j) It has not proved practicable to discuss the British Columbia statute in detail.