Anala Mo­han

Stu­dent, Hugh Wood­ing Law School

Un­der sec­tion 4(a) of the Con­sti­tu­tion of T&T, each cit­i­zen has the right to the en­joy­ment of prop­er­ty and the right not to be de­prived of this right ex­cept by due process of law. Cit­i­zens there­fore have the right to legal­ly own prop­er­ty or have ti­tle to land.

To prove own­er­ship of, or ti­tle to land, a per­son must show ev­i­dence of own­er­ship. The doc­u­ment re­quired to ev­i­dence own­er­ship will be de­pen­dent on which sys­tem the land falls un­der since there are two sys­tems of land ti­tle in T&T.

The com­mon law sys­tem or the old Eng­lish law sys­tem of ti­tle is gov­erned by the Con­veyanc­ing and Law of Prop­er­ty Act Chap. 56:01. The new­er sys­tem of reg­is­tra­tion of ti­tles is gov­erned by the Re­al Prop­er­ty Act Chap. 56:02, com­mon­ly called the "RPA sys­tem."

The com­mon law sys­tem

Un­der this sys­tem a landown­er proves ti­tle or own­er­ship of land by a Deed of Con­veyance. The deed of con­veyance must be traced back at least 20 years to be deemed a "good ti­tle" for the pur­pose of sale.

Ti­tle is not reg­is­tered un­der the "old law sys­tem" but the deed it­self is reg­is­tered by de­posit­ing in the Land Reg­istry. This makes it pos­si­ble to trace the reg­is­tered deed to the own­er. This can be a lengthy and some­times com­pli­cat­ed process.

Fur­ther, on­ly reg­is­tered le­gal in­ter­ests are dis­cov­ered, while any ex­ist­ing un­reg­is­tered in­ter­ests would go un­traced. For in­stance, where the land is sub­ject to a trust or if there is an ex­ist­ing agree­ment for sale of the land, these in­ter­ests would not be dis­cov­ered by a ti­tle search.

The reg­is­tra­tion of ti­tles sys­tem

The RPA sys­tem is mod­elled af­ter the Aus­tralian Tor­rens Sys­tem and was in­tro­duced in T&T to ease the prob­lems of the old law sys­tem. Un­der this sys­tem the own­er of prop­er­ty is re­quired to lodge all his land ti­tle doc­u­ments in the Land Reg­istry. The own­er proves own­er­ship by pro­duc­ing a Cer­tifi­cate of Ti­tle.

Un­der this sys­tem, it is eas­i­er to de­ter­mine if ti­tle is valid since it would have been thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed and ap­proved by the Land Reg­istry of­fi­cials be­fore it was reg­is­tered. There­fore the process of in­ves­ti­gat­ing ti­tle is sig­nif­i­cant­ly short­ened.

Al­though on­ly ti­tle can be ful­ly en­tered on the reg­is­ter, non-le­gal in­ter­ests are pro­tect­ed by the lodg­ing of a caveat which is en­dorsed on the cer­tifi­cate of ti­tle. The caveat acts as a warn­ing or cau­tion to peo­ple deal­ing with the par­tic­u­lar landown­er. The sys­tem is there­fore more ac­cu­rate in re­veal­ing all the in­ter­ests ex­ist­ing over the land.

It is im­por­tant that landown­ers be­come aware of the na­ture of their ti­tle. While there are a num­ber of ad­van­tages to the RPA sys­tem, most land owned in T&T is still un­der the com­mon law sys­tem. How­ev­er, landown­ers who so de­sire can have their lands brought un­der the RPA sys­tem.

This col­umn is not le­gal ad­vice. If you have a le­gal prob­lem, you should con­sult a le­gal ad­vis­er.