Under the Registry Act practically any instrument affecting land may be registered provided its execution is proved in the manner prescribed by the act. The registrar assumes no responsibility as to the legal effect of the instrument, which is simply recorded for whatever it is worth, so to speak, and a purchaser takes a conveyance at his own risk after having investigated the title disclosed by the various instruments which are registered or of which he has notice. Under the Land Titles Acts the owner of land is registered as such. Only the registered owner may register an instrument purporting to transfer or charge the land, and he must use one of the comparatively simple forms of instrument prescribed by the acts instrument and becomes the registered owner of an estate or interest, then, even though the instrument as regards him is invalid, a purchaser from him is protected by the statute, because this second purchaser is entitled to rely upon the register and need not go behind it, so that the instrument which is invalid so far as the immediate purchaser is concerned thus becomes a good root of title in favour of a subsequent purchaser.

(k) Article on Uniformity in Registration of Title Law in 37 C.L.T. 374-383 (May, 1917).

(l) Similar provisions are contained in the Ontario .Saskatchewan and British Columbia statutes (see chapter 26, Limitation of Actions, Sec. 282) and these statutes would have to be amended accordingly.

(m). The registrar is obliged to pass on the validity of the instrument, decide what its legal effect is, and if he admits it to registration, must enter on the register the change in the title to the land which results from the registration of the instrument. As a consequence of this procedure, when land is transferred the transferee becomes the registered owner and the earlier links in the chain of title become immaterial.

The main object of the land titles system "is to save persons dealing with registered proprietors from the trouble and expense of going behind the register in order to investigate the history of their author's title and to satisfy themselves of its validity. That end is accomplished by providing that every one who purchases, bona fide and for value, from a registered proprietor, and enters his deed of transfer or mortgage on the register, shall thereby acquire an indefeasible right notwithstanding the infirmity of his author's title" (n).

It is important to bear in mind the exact nature of the "main object" above mentioned. A purchaser in good faith is entitled to rely upon the register and need not go behind the title of the registered owner, but of course he must satisfy himself that an instrument purporting to be made by the registered owner is itself valid. Registration will not render an invalid instrument valid in favour of the purchaser therein named (o), but.if the purchaser registers the

(m) Except in the case of the British Columbia statute.

(n) Gibbs v. Messer, [1891] A.C. 248, at p. 254. This is a leading case arising under the Transfer of Land Statute of Victoria. The question whether the same complete protection is intended to be afforded by the land titles system to a transferee who has not given valuable consideration is referred to in Sec. 97, infra, in connection with the question of the validity of unregistered interests.

(o) Attorney-General v. Odell, [1906] 2 Ch. 47, at pp. 75, 82. This was a case under the English Land Transfer Acts. Even under the statutes in force in the western provinces, although instruments become fully operative only upon registration (see Sec. 94), the result is not that registration necessarily validates an instrument between the parties or makes effective its whole contents. See, e.g., Smith v. National Trust Co., 1912, 45 Can. S.C.R. 618, 1 D.L.R. 698, affirming 20 M.R. 522; cf. Thom, The Canadian Torrens System, 183 ff.

The distinction just drawn may be best illustrated by the case of a forged transfer. The immediate transferee under a forged instrument has no title against the true registered owner and a certificate of title procured upon a forged transfer may be set aside (p). If, however, the transferee under the forged transfer, having become the registered owner, executes an instrument in favour of a purchaser or mortgagee in good faith and for value, such instrument being registered, is valid against the true owner (q).