The necessity of informing third parties about the legal status of real property and its transparency has led legal systems to adopt the principle of mandatory registration for real estate transactions. Nevertheless, there are instances where ownership is transferred prior to official registration—such as in cases where judicial decisions confirm ownership. In these cases, ownership is effectively transferred to the transferee before the transaction is officially registered. The question arises as to how the registration of these instances should be made mandatory in order to complete the information in the land registration system. Mandatory registration is not fulfilled merely by using electronic platforms through the registration process, as it does not affect the legal status of ownership transfer, and creating an online system merely facilitates the completion of land book.
Therefore, as a first step, the legal effect of judicially ownership transfers prior to registration should be officially recognized. As a second step, the principle of relative effect of registration should be applied—acknowledging the transferee’s ownership while conditioning any subsequent transfer on official registration. It is in pursuit of this goal that accelerating property registration is achieved through the creation of electronic systems.
The acceleration of ownership registration, supported by the implementation of electronic systems, aligns with this two-step approach. This study, adopting a comparative legal perspective, examines the principle of mandatory registration in real estate transactions, first by assessing the legal reliability of informal documents, and subsequently by analyzing judicial transfers of ownership and their implications before official registration.