alt Hacker NewsNo, the United States doesnt have a central land registry because that is not an enumerated power of the federal government. The individual states have sovereignty over their own land and each has its own system for land registration. The article you linked to even names several states that have a partial Torrens title system.
The claim that the title insurance industry is the reason for lack of adoption of Torrens title schemes is uncited, and immediately followed by descriptions of several cases where Torrens title was adopted (often poorly) and later abandoned.
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"No, the United States doesnt have a central land registry [..]"
Fascinating, how is ownership established if there is no single source of truth?
I feel the answer to this is also crucial to understanding OP. It could be a minor annoyance or the real possibility to lose your land.
The federal government never enumerated the power to manage a national credit agency and yet we have several.
> No, the United States doesnt have a central land registry because that is not an enumerated power of the federal government.
I think you misunderstood the post you were replying to. Torrens title was invented in Australia. Just like in the US, land titles are a state responsibility in Australia not a federal one. But each state has a central statewide land registry which is the authoritative source of truth for land ownership. By contrast, US states hold land title records in a decentralised way (at the local government level not the state level), and those records aren’t legally decisive.
Most common law jurisdictions have centralised land titles, but often centralised at one level below the national government.