Comment by ExoticPearTree
1 day ago
> I was worried about the societal implications of being unable to prove land ownership but it seems that may be avoided.
You know, it's not like people would come and steal your land overnight because you can't provide proof of ownership.
Squatters, boundary disputes and rent defaults happen all the time.
Plus having most of your net worth locked up in something no sane person would consider buying off you because you can't prove you own it is ... suboptimal
People can come and cut down trees, use the land for their cattle, raise crops or just start building something. If you don't challenge it and they get away with it for a while, they could even gain use of the land legally.
Happens far more often than you would think in developing countries.
Property lines disputes happen every single day in America, too. It's a universal thing.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg15ev0347o
"Under normal circumstances, property law in England and Wales dictates the original owner cannot claim their property back even if the title change was made fraudulently."
That's... a curious thing to have in the body of laws. What's its purpose and who does it serve?
The US system is more the oddity, its the legacy England system from pre-19th century. England and Wales adopted and modified an Australian system, and its adopted a fair bit across the commonwealth. In other developed countries a lot are very much registry-is-correct. I think France is the main one which is "deeds based"
The advantages are you can see who owns the land, there's no argument in 20 years time when someone puts a competing claim.
There's an entire industry in the US dedicated to working around the problems that buyers have https://www.alta.org/
If you buy land, then build a house, then someone comes along from 1932 saying "actually that land is mine", you are screwed.
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After the tsunami that hit Thailand and wiped out many fishing villages on the Pacific coast, the people were evacuated but as soon as they returned, they found the local mafia occupying the land, and as they had no need and there was no land registry, they were forced to rebuy their land.