(7.) As to matters necessary to insure the full effect of the executed conveyance. - Registration, enrolment, etc.

If the property be subject to the operation of any of the local Registration Acts, a memorial of the conveyance should be registered as soon as practicable after execution; the register having (as before observed) been searched as closely as possible before completion; when dealing with respectable parties this rule as to immediate registration is often not very strictly attended to, but any departure from it is at the peril of the solicitor; by delay the purchaser is exposed to the risk not only of a subsequent fraudulent sale or mortgage by the vendor, (which may generally be considered merely nominal,) but also of prior unregistered incumbrancers (r), whose claims may perhaps be unknown even to the vendor, acquiring priority by registration between the execution and registration of the conveyance.

The exceptions in the Acts are of copyhold estates, leases at a rack-rent, and leases not exceeding twenty-one years where the actual possession and occupation go along with the lease.

Whitbread v. Jordan.

Conveyance should be entered in Local Register (if any).

Importance of immediate registration.

What interests are excepted from the

(o) 1 Y. & C. 303. (p) 1 Phill. 255; and see a note on the subject in 4 Y. & C. 561. (q) Worthington v. Morgan, 16

Sim. 547.

(r) As in Martinez v. Cooper, 2 Russ. 198.

The exception of copyholds is not considered in practice to extend to such leases as would require registration if the estate were freehold (s); and Mr. Rigge recommends the registration of all such deeds affecting this description of property as are not usually recorded by the Steward of the Manor (t).

The exception of the greatest practical importance is that of leases at rack rent; Sir E. Sugden considers it to be the better opinion that the assignment of a lease held at what was originally a rack rent need not be registered in respect of its having become a valuable property; perhaps, however, this is a doctrine which should be cautiously received in practice (v): a lease which contains any engagement on the part of the lessee to build upon or otherwise improve the property, cannot, it is conceived, be considered as a lease at a rack rent within the meaning of the exception, although the rent may be reserved from the date of the lease, and may exceed what would be the annual value of the property if let for any other purpose.

Of the third exception it need only be observed, that the words "possession and occupation" are in the conjunctive (w); so that, in order to avoid registration, the purchaser must not only buy the present interest in the lease, but must actually become the occupier of the premises.

The Middlesex Act has no operation within the City of London (x).

It appears, that a deed assigning a legacy or other sum of money charged upon land, but not purporting to deal with the land itself, does not require registration (y); but registration is not rendered unnecessary by the circumstance of the conveyance operating as an appointment pursuant to a power in a registered instrument (z).