[gruez]

>As an analogy, I'm imagining a country where there is no reliable municipal property registry, and no one knows who owns a particular house. Wouldn't that create chaos?

That's basically how it works in many (most?) US states. There's no authoritative record of all claims on a property. Land registries exist, but they're not authoritative. Liens can exist without being registered on it, and surface later. Hence the need for "title insurance".

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/working-title-insuran...