“Tell Me Don’t Show Me” and the Fall and Rise of the Conveyancer

Property law, observed Robert Rennie in 2010, has come to be marginalised by registration practice.¹ With the move from a system of registration of deeds to one of registration of title, the rights of parties were determined by what, on first registration, the Keeper was prepared to allow on to the Land Register. No doubt, in making such decisions the Keeper had regard to the law of property. But the Keeper’s property law might not be the same as the property law of the applicant’s solicitor – or indeed, that solicitor might contend, as the property law of Scotland.² No matter.