The deed and the ground
A certificate of title records a claim. It does not, on its own, tell you who is standing on the land.
Every property transaction begins with a piece of paper and ends, eventually, with a piece of ground. Most of the difficulty in practice lives in the distance between the two.
A register is an administrative record. It is built from surveys, applications, endorsements and the decisions of officials, each made at a particular moment by a particular person working with the information in front of them. It is not a photograph of reality. It is an account of reality, and accounts can be incomplete, out of date, or contested.
Where the gap opens
The gap between the register and the ground widens in predictable places. Land held under customary arrangements does not always convert cleanly into documented tenure. Boundaries described decades ago may not match beacons on the ground today. Occupation may have continued quietly for years without ever reaching a file.
None of this makes the register useless. It makes it a starting point rather than a conclusion.
Why it matters for planning
For anyone building something they intend to pass on, this distinction is not academic. An asset you cannot describe precisely is an asset your family will struggle to defend. The work of confirming what you actually hold, and on what terms, is far cheaper done now than done by an executor, or by a court.
The question is rarely "is there a title?" It is "does the title describe the thing you think you own?"
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