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1924. NEW ZEALAND.

LAND TRANSFER AND DEEDS REGISTRATION. ANNUAL REPORT OF DEPARTMENT, 1923-24.

Presented to both Houses of the General Assembly by Command of His Excellency.

Head Office, Stamp Duties Department, Wellington, Ist August, 1924. The Right Hon. the Minister op Stamp Duties, Wellington. I have the honour to submit the usual report on the working of the Land Transfer and Deeds Registration Department for the year ended the 31st March, 1924. The report of the Registrar-General of Land is also included. The returns appended show— A. —The business transacted under the Land Transfer Act. B.—The fees received thereunder, including the fees received on account of Crown grants. o.—The mortgages and discharges of mortgages, and the amount remaining secured by mortgage under the said Act on the 31st March, 1924. D.—The arrears existing at the various Land Transfer Offices at the close of business on the same date. E.—The number of deeds received for registration and the number remaining unrecorded on the 31st March last; also the fees received in the Deeds Registration Offices. D. G. Clark, Secretary for Land and Deeds. REPORT OF THE REGISTRAR-GENERAL OF LAND. The Secretary for Land and Deeds. As is usual, I have visited the offices of all the District Land Registrars and Registrars of Deeds, and conferred with the Registrars upon the work of their offices and of the Department. The current registration work is being kept well up to date in all the offices, but there is in some of them a very large amount of work that in my opinion should be done to render the offices as efficient as they ought to be. This consists of the preparation or completion of indexes to titles and plans, and more particularly to the renewal of index and other plans that have become obliterated by constant use during many years. This work is being carried on in some offices by the ordinary staff whenever time can be spared from the current registration work, but in one office in particular, where most requires to be done, the staff is quite insufficient at present to undertake it. The following shows the increase in volume of business since the year 1884 : Total registration on fees—lBB4, 44,558 ; 1894, 30,334; 1904, 50,709 ; 1914, 73,569 ; 1924, 94,386. The number of register-books has doubled in the last seventeen years, and the number of documents filed has doubled in the last thirteen or fourteen years. This increase of business and records makes increased accommodation a continual, necessity. At the present time two of the offices are in urgent need of room to expand in. Allied to the question of sufficiency of accommodation is that of the security of the records. The rooms in which they are housed are supposed to be fireproof. Perhaps they are as regards fire from without, but it is open to grave doubt whether there is not sufficient inflammable material in the shape of wooden desks, book-racks, and other furniture, and sufficient ventilation in the room, to cause the destruction of a large part of the; records in the event of a fire starting in the rooms, and that is by no means an impossibility. If it is only a remote contingency it is one that should be jealously guarded against, for oven the partial destruction of the land-registration records of ono district would be a calamity that would affect a greater number of people than would the destruction of perhaps any other property. I think the wooden fittings should be replaced, as soon as the circumstances admit, with steel or other non-inflammable fittings. A Bill has been drafted, at the instance of the Hon. the Attorney-General, and circulated, intended to make provision for bringing all land alienated from the Crown under the provisions of the Land Transfer Act. Some amendments of the present Land Transfer Act are desired by Registrars to facilitate the working of their offices. C. E. Nalder, Wellington, 12th April, 1924. Registrar-General of Land.