Overriding statutes and Torrens - developing a response to Torrens’s 'greatest legal enemy'

Overriding legislation has been described as the “greatest legal enemy” to the proper functioning of the Torrens system. Case law is replete with illustrations where local council legislation will impose a condition on a subdivision application. For reasons that are never particularly clear, that condition is not complied with. Who should prevail – the person relying on title, and thus indefeasibility, or the person who suggests the later enacted legislation will override this critical Torrens precept. The result of this confusion is incoherency in the development of the law, and intractable problems of statutory interpretation. This article recommends that the solution to this problem is multi-faceted, and should encompass such things as broader access to the assurance fund and greater utilisation of title insurance. It also encourages the idea that web portals be established, so that conditions associated with land, can be more easily located.