The temporary shutdown of provincial government websites in response to a recently-discovered global cybersecurity vulnerability has shed light once again on what the Realtors Association calls an old and antiquated registry title system.
Realtors, lawyers and municipalities all make regular use of the system for title and deed searches, but anything before 1980 requires what’s been described as a “Harry Potter” style search through old books and documents.
Realtors Association CEO Bill Stirling says the system needs to be modernized.
He says Newfoundland and Labrador is one of the few provinces in the country, where every time a real estate transaction takes place, “we have to trace the root of the title on that property, right back to where it originated.”
(Association of Realtors CEO Bill Stirling; File photo)
That’s largely because of the way in which Newfoundland and Labrador was settled and how the population grew over the centuries.
“A lot of property was obtained by adverse possession over hundreds of years. The software that runs the Registry of Deeds is antiquated. Our entire land title system is old and antiquated and we’ve been advocating for quite some time now to have a modern, TORRENS-based land registration system.”
He says the cost of modernizing the system is substantial.
“Moya Green talked about it in her report a few years ago. I mean the cost to do this is going to be billions, and really the only way to attract that kind of investment into modernization of our registries is through the private sector.”
He says “it’s something that government has talked about” but “it hasn’t been high enough on their priority list to do anything about it.”
