is the process designed to provide a public system by which the ownership of real estate is reasonably ascertainable and thereby discourages or prevents fraudulent transfers.

For example, without a public record of real estate ownership, an unscrupulous tenant pretending to be the owner might be able to convince an unsuspecting purchaser to buy the property from him. Because of public records, the purchaser has the opportunity to examine ownership of the property and determine that the title is not held by the person claiming ownership. By examining the public records the purchaser can acquire the information and will be barred from claiming later that he did not know the seller was not the owner.