Australian property legislation refers to the different schemes of regulating

property rights The right to property, or the right to own property (cf. ownership) is often classified as a human right for natural persons regarding their possessions. A general recognition of a right to private property is found more rarely and is typically ...

between each

jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. Jur ...

of the states and territories in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

; combining

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolled bill, enrolling, enactment of a bill, enacting, or promulgation, promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous Government, governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law i ...

and receptive of

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...

. Despite differing

statutes A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by le ...

, the substantive effect in each jurisdiction is quite similar. The reason there is no unified national system for regulating

property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...

is the reservation of this power to the states in the

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

. There have been discussions about a co-operative system of regulation to be implemented between the states, conferring jurisdiction on the federal commonwealth in a similar manner done in the ''

Corporations Act 2001 The ''Corporations Act 2001'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia, which sets out the laws dealing with business entities in the Commonwealth of Australia. The company is the Act's primary focus, but other entities, such as partners ...

''. Property legislation in all states is grounded upon the Torrens principle of registration of title. This posits that each state has a central register of all land in the state and that the register also shows the 'owner' of the land. This system was devised to reduce the amount of

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...

relating to land due to the falsification of

title deed A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify either generation, an official position, or a professional or academic qualification. In some languages, titles may be inserted between the f ...

s. The system also provides for registration of other entitlements to land such as a

mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any pu ...

, by which land is used to secure a

loan In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that d ...

. Another major principle of this system is 'indefeasibility' of the title – where a right has been entered on the register, it cannot be defeated by later rights except in certain circumstances.

List of legislation by state or territory

*''Real Property Act 1900'' (NSW); see also ''Conveyancing Act 1919'' (NSW
AustLii
*''Transfer of Land Act 1958'' (VIC) *''Land Titles Act 1925'' (ACT) *''Property Law Act 1974'' (QLD) *''Law of Property Act'' (NT) *''Real Property Act 1886'' (SA) *''Land Titles Act 1980'' (TAS) *''Property Law Act 1969'' (WA)

References

Commonwealth of Australia laws Australian property law {{Australia-law-stub