This is only the case when you care more about the letter of the law than the spirit of the law, which is, I suppose, most of the world. It doesn't have to be this way, it's a choice that society has made.

When I bought my house, in an alternate universe the paperwork could have been one sheet of paper that said "[My name] purchases home at [address] from [Seller's name] for [price]." and we'd all rely on our shared understanding of what it means to buy something and shared cultural expectations around home ownership and commerce. But our society did not make that choice, we don't live in that universe, so I had to sign a 300 page stack of papers 30 times.