It remains to mention that by the Land Transfer Act 1897 a system of compulsory registration of title, limited to the county of London, was established. (See LAND REGISTRATION.)
_Conveyancing counsel to the court_ (i.e. to the chancery division of the High Court) are certain counsel, in actual practice as conveyancers, of not less than ten years' standing, who are appointed by the lord chancellor, to the number of six, under s. 40 of the Master in Chancery Abolition Act 1852. They are appointed for the purpose of assisting the court in the investigation of the title to any estate, and upon their opinion the court or any judge thereof may act. Any party who objects to the opinion given by any conveyancing counsel may have the point in dispute disposed of by the judge at chambers or in court. Business to be referred to conveyancing counsel is distributed among them in rotation, and their fees are regulated by the taxing officers.
_United States._--American legislation favours the general policy of registering all documents in the contents of which the public have an interest, and its tendency has been steadily towards more and more full registration both of documents and statistics. From the early days of the colonial era it has been customary to record wills and conveyances of real estate in full in public books, suitably indexed, to which free access was given. During the last decade of the 19th century, three states--Illinois, Massachusetts, and Ohio--adopted the main features of the Torrens or Prussian system for registering title to land rather than conveyances under which title may be claimed. These are the ascertainment by public officers of the state of the title to some or all of the parcels of real estate which are the subject of individual property within the state; the description of each parcel (giving its proper boundaries and characteristics) on a separate page of a public register, and of the manner in which the title is vested; the issue of a certificate to the owner that he is the owner; the official notation on this register of each change of title thereafter; and a warranty by the government of the title to which it may have certified. To make the system complete it is further requisite that every landowner should be compelled to make use of it, and that it should be impossible to transfer a title effectually without the issue of such a government certificate in favour of the purchaser.