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Originally introduced in the nineteenth century, the system of registration of titles to land has gradually been extended to different areas throughout England and Wales, and on 1 December 1990 all remaining areas became areas of compulsory registration. The system of registration is now therefore overwhelmingly dominant. A key change in this area was the repeal and replacement of the Land Registration Act 1925 by the Land Registration Act 2002. Registration of title to all land was the ultimate aim of the 1925 legislation. Registration under the Land Registration Act 1925 furnished a title guaranteed by the State and the underlying principle was that the register at HM Land Registry should, so far as possible, reflect the title to the land. The Land Registration Act 2002 further extended this 'mirror' principle in ways which will be pointed out in the answers to the questions in this chapter. The Act also includes sections which provide for the gradual introduction of electronic conveyancing.
Land transfer in England and Wales is essentially a two-step process: first contract, then transfer of title(i.e. 'completion' of the contract by registered disposition). It is irrelevant for this purpose whether the subject matter of the transfer is a freehold estate or a long leasehold estate. In either case the relationship between vendor and purchaser(i.e. between 'seller' and 'buyer', as modern conveyancing terminology increasingly expresses it) normally develops through three sharply defined phases: pre-contractual negotiations and enquiries, exchange of contract ,and disposition of the legal estate accompanied by registration of the disposition at Land Registry. The contract for sale is 'completed' by the signed and attested deed of disposition of the vendor's estate, but in registered land the transfer itself is 'completed' only when the instrument of dis-position(i.e. the transfer document) is lodged at Land Registry for amendment of the
relevant proprietorship register. In unregistered land, by contrast, the formal conveyance of a legal estate if effective to vest that estate immediately in the purchaser, but most conveyances must be presented within two months at Land Registry for first registration of title if the legal estate if to remain vested in the purchaser.
There was no attempt in 1925 to force everybody to register their land immediately─to do so would have overloaded the system and left the Land Registry unable to cope. Instead, areas of the country were made areas of 'compulsory registration', which meant that any land that was the subject of a 'triggering event', such as a sale, was subject to first registration of title.
The areas of compulsory registration began with major cities, because there are more separate pieces of land in urban areas. Eventually, in 1990, the whole of England and Wales was made an area of compulsory registration.
In addition, the number of triggering events was increased by subsequent legislation. These are now set out in LRA 2002, s. 4. It is likely that, at some future point, all surviving unregistered title will be swept compulsorily on to the Land Register and Land Registry has targeted 2012 as the year in which it expects to have created a 'comprehensive Land Register for England and Wales'.