In 1857 there were said to be 40,000 titles to land in the colony of South Australia. Of these, approximately three-quarters of the original deeds were lost, one-third were owned by absentees (some untraceable), and at least 5,000 were seriously complicated, if not defective.

Government returns for the year showed some £77,000 lent on mortgages for town property and £45,000 for country lands. The legal profession was said to be making £100,000 a year from arranging transfers, mortgages and leases, and though lawyers' fees were not extortionate, the usual cost of conveyancing was 3%–5% of the value of the land, and mortgaging from 10% upwards.

While the lawyers were quite happy, the hapless borrowers were not so comfortable. An unexpected deed coming to light could make them vulnerable to charges of fraud and forfeiture of their livelihood. Private subdivisions, especially in and around Adelaide and the secondary towns, only added to the problem. Since it wasn't compulsory to employ a licensed surveyor and sellers refused to surrender original deeds, purchasers were committed to uncertain titles.

Much of the problem was related to the form of the original titles. Early titles were little more than receipts issued by the Commissioner of Public Lands and the Colonial Treasurer, who granted perpetual possession of the land to the purchaser and his/her heirs. These ‘receipts' didn't specify the size or the position of the land, which was only identifiable by a number in a rectangular box in the margin. The number referred to the original map of the district held by the surveyor General, but such district maps were often inaccurate in themselves.

To complicate matters, in 1839 the district maps were destroyed in a fire, and obliterated survey marks and incorrectly located fences meant the replacement maps compounded many original errors. After 1842, the district divisions were gradually replaced by ‘counties' and ‘hundreds', and the land resurveyed and renumbered.