REFORM OF THE REAL PROPERTY ACTS IN QUEENSLAND

Abstract

Registration of title to land in Queensland dates back to 1861 and the enactment in that year of the Real Property Act of 1861. With the enactment of this statute, Queensland was the first other jurisdiction to adopt Sir Robert Torrens wide ranging reforms of conveyancing in South Australia, which were first enacted in 1858. Indeed it is often argued that Queensland followed too quickly,1 in that it copied the original South Australian scheme before the amendments consequent upon the South Australian Real Property Commission of 1861 had been enacted. Some of the later South Australian reforms were adopted by the Real Property Act of 1877. This legislation also dealt with some of the problems which case law had brought to notice in the intervening years. However, since this Act took the form of a separate additional Act rather than textually amending the original legislation, Queensland's legislation dealing with the registration of title, the so-called 'Torrens System', remained in far less than a perfect conditon. The only other major amendments prior to 1986, were the 1952 amendments. In relation to the primary purpose, which was to make provision for the acquisition of title by adverse possession to land under the Real Property Acts, (in consequence of the decision in Miscamble v. Phillips, which had ruled out such acquisition in respect of such land), this legislation followed the pattern of that of 1877 in that the new substantive provisions were enacted as part of the Real Property Acts Amendment Act of 1952, rather than being inserted into the original 1861 Act by textual amendment. However, there were extensive amendments of other parts of the Acts as well.