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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 12 May 1964

Vol. 209 No. 9

Death of Member. - Registration of Title Bill, 1963: Report and Final Stages.

The Minister agreed in February last that we would recommit all these amendments.

It was historic because we secured the Minister's agreement.

Because of events which were taking place on that day.

Is it the suggestion that we recommit from section 25?

That was the agreement.

I thought there was agreement to recommit the lot. There are a number of points on different sections I should like to make.

The position was that Deputy O'Higgins was not available and the Leader of his Party suggested that, in so far as Deputy O'Higgins's amendments were concerned, we would agree to recommit.

May I suggest that we recommit the amendments and the section?

In other words, any section to which there is an amendment?

Deputy Dillon withdrew the amendments on the understanding that we would recommit the Bill at this stage.

Is it the suggestion that we also recommit the sections to which there are no amendments?

If there is a point we wish to make on a section, we could raise it on the section. If I feel further amendment is necessary, I may move it on the Fifth Stage.

Bill recommitted in respect of sections to which amendments on the paper relate.
SECTION 25.

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 14, line 6, to delete "three" and substitute "six".

We had begun to discuss this amendment on Committee last January. I do not expect the Minister to have retained the arguments I advanced at that time, so I think I had better go over them very briefly. Section 25 is the section which, in effect, means that when the Bill comes into operation no transaction shall be effective—in fact, it will be null and void—unless registration is completed within three months of the date of the transfer of the deed. I think amendments Nos. 1 and 2 might be taken together. I am suggesting, first, that instead of a time limit of three months, we should prescribe six months. Later on I suggest, in the second amendment, that the time limit should run from the date of the application for registration and should not be dependent on the actual date of registration.

This matter is one of very considerable importance. I can see that a person without practical experience in land registration matters might say there is no reason why a deal should not be completed in three months from the date of the deed—that if A and B agree to sell land and if they execute a transfer of land from A to B, there is no reason why that should not be dealt with and completed inside three months and, therefore, the period of three months suggested in the section is adequate. I can assure the Minister quite definitely that that point of view is conceived in ignorance of the practical effect which it is likely to have.

Before a dealing can be brought for registration at all, it must be stamped. Nowadays, particularly in the case of building leases—many areas of registered land are being developed for building purposes—it is practically an invariable requirement that the lease should be adjudicated and adjudged duly stamped by the Stamping Branch of the Revenue Commissioners. In order to have that done, it is necessary to satisfy any requirements of the Adjudication Office. It is necessary to discharge any queries that may arise with regard to the particular lease or whatever the instrument in question is.

I want to say—and I am talking from personal, practical experience— it could very well happen—indeed, I have here on the desk before me an example of it—that a lease might not be stamped for a period of six, eight or nine months after it is first presented for adjudication. I want to make it clear I am not in any way faulting or criticising the officials of the Adjudication Office.

What has happened in the particular case I have in mind is that it has not been possible to proceed with the stamping of the lease. I can give the Minister very briefly the reason for it. It is not a matter that arises in his Department so much as in another Department. In this case it is a lease of a new house being taken by a non-national. In the ordinary way, unless there were special circumstances with which he could comply, that lease would attract stamp duty at the rate of 25 per cent. In the case of buildings where a grant is paid or payable, the stamp duty is reduced to one per cent. Alternatively, if the non-national obtains a letter of recommendation from the Land Commission to relieve him of the 25 per cent rate, it would be stamped at three per cent.

In the case I had in mind—it is one with which I was dealing myself—a situation has arisen where agreement with regard to the State grant has not been reached between the builders and the Department of Local Government. As I understand the position, it has not been positively refused, but negotiations are going on with regard to the grant. Because of that, the Land Commission will not deal with the application from the lessee to relieve him of payment of the 25 per cent stamp duty rate. Again, I am not criticising them. I have no doubt they are simply carrying out the job laid down for them in the Finance Act. Their attitude is that so long as there is other legislation covering the position, they cannot deal with an application.

This lease was lodged for adjudication—I am talking from memory—on 9th November, 1963. It has not yet been stamped. Possibly it will be—I hope so anyway—in the near future. Because it has not yet been stamped, it is impossible to present it for registration at the Land Registry. On the Minister's proposal in this section, that lease, or any other dealing in a similar position, would be ruled out and would have no force or effect at all. I hope it is only necessary to give the Minister come concrete example of what may happen to persuade him to change his mind on this. If he insists on the provision in the section, he is going to create an extremely difficult position not only for the lawyers concerned with the particular conveyancing matters in the Bill but also for vendors and purchasers.

What this section is doing is providing that, if registration does not take place inside three months, the transaction is of no force or effect. We must remember also that the ordinary conveyancing practice is—I cannot see any other way of dealing with the matter—that a man agrees with another to sell him a particular property. The title of the vendor is investigated by the purchaser's solicitor. Eventually, the deed of transfer or deed of assignment is drawn up and executed by both parties and the deal is closed. The purchase is completed and the money is passed over. In return for handing over the money, the purchaser gets a deed of transfer from the vendor. The land comes for registration but it does not end there. The purchaser still has to get the deed registered before it is of real force or effect. The Minister is saying, in this section, not only must you get it registered, but you must get it registered inside three months from the date of the lease. If you do not do that, the deed has no force or effect. You may have paid out the money; you may have spent a considerable amount of money and paid it over to the vendor; but you will get nothing in return unless you succeed in registering within three months.

I have spoken about the difficulties which may arise before a deed can be presented for registration. I think many members of my profession would be able to tell the Minister—I do not want to be misinterpreted in this or to be deemed as criticising the officials of the Land Registry—that it is not an uncommon matter to find that the registration of dealings which are lodged for registration in the Land Registry will not be completed within a period of three months.

I made inquiries recently in the Land Registry regarding two particular matters. One of them was in connection with the type of business I deal with in my profession and the other was on behalf of one of my constitutents. The dealing was not registered inside three months in each of those two cases. I think one took about six months and the other, the case of my constituent, had taken five months at the time I inquired about it. I assume it has since been dealt with. I do not know because there is no obligation on the Land Registry to tell me whether it has, or has not, been dealt with. It was, to my mind, quite a simple transaction. It was a case where a man wanted to get a charge removed from the folio and the deed of release was lodged in the Land Registry. At the time I inquired about it, about five months had elapsed from the date of the deed and, indeed, I think, from the date of making the application to the Land Registry.

At present it could be that it will take even longer than three months from the date on which the dealing is lodged in the Land Registry. I know the Minister might answer me in regard to that argument by saying, when this Bill goes through, and when it is in operation, that there will be, and must be, a vast expansion in the personnel, that there must be a difference in the methods, and so on, in the Land Registry which will cut out any delays. That may be so. If it is so, I should be very glad indeed but it will not get over the obligation which I mentioned first, the obligation in respect of the dealing which cannot even be presented for registration for a considerable time after the date of the deed.

I want to support Deputy O'Higgins's view in regard to this matter. There is no doubt that any of us who have practical experience of it will feel that the limitation of three months in this section is quite unrealistic. I know the Minister's anxiety. He is anxious to provide, partly what I might call the sanction and partly what I might call an inducement to people to register quickly and to provide in the only way he can that registration will be brought up to date. At the same time, doing it in this way will do either of two things. There will either be some transfers that cannot be registered in the manner in which Deputy O'Higgins has indicated or it will mean quite unnecessary application to the Registrar. The burden being put on the Registrar under this Bill will be a very heavy one, if, in addition to that, he will have unnecessary applications for the extension of time under section 25. It seems to me quite indefensible.

The section gives power for extension. The extension can be produced as a matter of routine, if you ask for it, which is nonsense, having asked for it in those circumstances. It may mean that various reasons will have to be given to the Registrar. In that connection it will take more of his time in quite an unnecessary manner. My own view is that the extension which Deputy O'Higgins has asked for is too short, when you take into account the difficulty in relation to mapping particularly. I want to refer to that later on, in section 84, which was the section I could not find. Transactions in building estates will be virtually impossible to complete even in the extended time which Deputy O'Higgins has suggested.

Deputy O'Higgins is in fact looking for two things. First of all, he wants an extension of time to six months, and secondly, he wants to provide that one must only apply within the six months' period, whereas the Bill provides that the registration must be completed within a three months' period. I think three months is long enough for the normal type of case. There may be exceptional cases of the type to which the Deputy has referred. In those cases, as Deputy Sweetman has mentioned, the Registrar——

Would the Minister be amazed to hear, in my experience, three months is the exception at present, not the rule? I do not want to speak about my own profession but I do a substantial Land Registry business.

I would be prepared to accept such a considered statement by the Deputy, naturally. As he knows himself, we have given a great deal of thought to the reorganisation of the Land Registry. Indeed, at one stage, we had arrived at the stage where delays were practically eliminated.

Yes, but that is only one step. That is where the Minister completely misses the point. There are several steps, of which that is only one.

That is understood. As I said to the Incorporated Law Society, the provisions of this Bill will not be operated to extend the area of registration until we are adequately equipped.

We are talking about the present position.

Let me give a practical case. You close a sale to-day and you pay, for the purchaser, the purchase money in respect of a new house. Having done that, you get it executed by the purchaser tomorrow. You send it to the Minister's colleague, the Minister for Local Government, for his certificate in order to qualify for the one per cent stamp duty. I do not know what Deputy O'Higgins's experience in regard to this is but a substantial period elapses before you get it back. When you get the certificate, it has to go for adjudication and a query may arise. If a query does not arise, the stamp duty has to be assessed and paid. The adjudication stamp has then to be impressed on it. All that has to happen before it goes near the Land Registry.

Even in the simplest case, where everything is absolutely crystal-clear and above board, half the Minister's period will be gone. I can tell the Minister it is a matter of routine practice. The real trouble, in relation to building estates, is mapping trouble. There is no difficulty in relation to the form of the words in the document to be registered. It is the mapping difficulty that arises and I venture to say that, in the case of nine building estates out of ten, there is considerable difficulty in relation to the mapping, largely because——

I must have been the tenth.

——the Ordnance Survey 25-inch sheet is not big enough for large-scale development in the city. No matter what the Minister does in the Land Registry, it must be the exception that he will get through in the remaining six weeks.

And, in addition, you have the difficulty from the Land Registry point of view that they are working on one folio and you have a number of leases going in for registration. Suppose there are 20 leases lodged, the 20th cannot be dealt with for many months.

I do not deny that these practical difficulties exist, but would the Deputies agree with me that it is desirable that we get people to register as soon as possible? That is all I am seeking to do in this section. I am providing that the conveyance shall not operate to transfer the title in the land unless it is registered within the three months.

That is there already.

Yes, but it does not affect the purchaser's equity in the land.

There is a later section which does.

If for any reason whatever the registration formalities cannot be completed within the three months, the Registrar has discretion to extend the time. In the type of cases enumerated by the Deputies, it is inconceivable that the Registrar would not grant the extension. Of course, even if the Registrar does not, the person concerned has the right to go to the court and get his extension.

Why clutter up the Registar with an unnecessary obligation when six months will operate to do exactly what the Minister requires just as well as three?

But Deputy O'Higgins is not seeking an extension of the three months to six months simpliciter.

I want it to date from the date of application.

Deputy O'Higgins wants three things. First, he wants six months. Secondly, he wants to have it that one must only apply within the six months.

Because then it is a matter for the Land Registry officials. There is no one else caught.

It is not solely a matter for the officials.

Assuming the matter is in order, it is purely a matter of mechanics and, if there is any delay from that on, it is with the Registrar and not with the vendor, or purchaser, or his solicitor.

The Deputy wants to discharge his obligation simply by applying and doing nothing more.

Oh, no. That can be tidied up when we are dealing with it.

We are only against priority from the date on which an application is lodged in order. If it is not lodged in order, it does not give one priority and, therefore, the purchaser's solicitor will be anxious to ensure that it is lodged in order.

My motive is not to create any insuperable difficulties for practitioners but simply to ensure that people are persuaded or compelled to register at the earliest possible moment. I am told that three months should be sufficient for this purpose in normal cases. If, however, it is not sufficient, the Registrar has discretion to extend the time. I regard this section as sufficiently flexible to cater for any particular type of case which will arise, while, at the same time, ensuring that the basic compulsion we require in this whole procedure is there.

Both Deputy Sweetman and I are talking here today as Deputies. I do not want to make any capital of the fact, but it is relevant that we both have practical experience of the problem. The Minister has not. I think it unlikely that the Minister's advisers have practical experience. In the circumstances, would the Minister agree to accept amendment No. 1, and I will not press amendment No. 2? He would then be keeping the element of compulsion but would be extending the period to a more reasonable and practical time.

I might go this far: I will agree to consider between now and the time the Bill is taken in the Seanad the question of extending the three months.

I have no doubt the Minister is quite bona fide in that, but I cannot recollect any occasion on which the Minister agreed to consider between now and the Seanad discussion——

On the Adoption Bill.

That was a principle; this is a matter of detail. Supposing the Minister is right, what does he lose by giving it? Nothing— absolutely nothing on the first amendment. I can see a certain objection to the second amendment but, on the first, he loses absolutely nothing.

I know that both Deputies opposite are competent practitioners who do not dilly-dally in their affairs, but let us face the fact that there are practitioners who always leave things to the last minute. If we give six months, they will take nine, and if we give nine months, they will take 12.

The difficulties I mention are serious, practical difficulties. I am talking in particular of building estates, but this also applies generally.

We hope, when we get the Land Registry operating efficiently, ordinary transactions will take ten days. That leaves three months, minus ten days, for clearing up all the difficulties to which Deputy Sweetman has alluded.

What the Minister is overlooking is the fact that nowadays because of the taxation under the stamp duty code, there is a great deal of time-consuming work which has to be done before the deed can be stamped. Under the Finance Acts, there is machinery for an application to the Land Commission to have non-nationals relieved in certain cases from paying the 25 per cent stamp duty. That replaces the provision that used to be there under which a non-national was allowed to purchase purely residential property for residential purposes, if the property did not consist of land exceeding five acres, simply by giving a certificate to that effect, and he was thereupon relieved of the 25 per cent stamp duty. That has been altered, and it is now necessary to go to the Land Commission.

I assume the Land Commissioners apply the same principle because the legislature obviously did not intend to alter that situation. But there is an obligation on the Land Commissioners to examine each case individually. They have to make certain inquiries. They have to satisfy themselves that the purchaser is not using this simply as a dodge, that he is not taking in a great number of different properties. Consequently, whenever an application is made, they issue a questionnaire and the answers to the questions have to be verified by the applicant by means of a statutory declaration. The questionnaire is very comprehensive, requiring all sorts of details. That has all to be examined by the Land Commissioners.

I had occasion to complain of the long time it takes to get a decision on one of these applications. While I have made that complaint, I appreciate that they are simply doing their work conscientiously. The Legislature has imposed a particular obligation on them and they must discharge that obligation. They cannot discharge it without making inquiries, and the inquiries necessarily take some time. I would guess that in most cases, if not in all, in which it is necessary to seek a letter from the Land Commission, the three months will be up before the decision from the Land Commissioners is available or, if it is not up, certainly two-thirds of it will be gone. It then has to go back to the Adjudication Office and the procedure Deputy Sweetman mentioned has to be gone through. That will account for the remaining month, even if it only takes two months before the Land Commissioners.

These cases occur every day. I do not know the volume of work before the Land Commissioners in this respect, but I do know that it must be considerable. That is all before the dealing can be even presented to the Land Registry for registration. If the Minister would concede that six months is more realistic—and I assure him it is—I think the Bill would be improved, and as Deputy Sweetman said, it certainly would not do any harm.

The only issue between us is whether the Registrar should have this discretion. In the type of case which Deputy O'Higgins describes, let us assume it is seven months before all these formalities are settled, and the purchaser is in a position to make application for registration. He will make his application and then apply to the Registrar to extend the time. He will explain why he cannot make the application within three months and he will, almost invariably, as a matter of course, provided some satisfactory reasons are advanced, get the extension he requires, and no difficulty will arise. We must assume the Registrar will act reasonably, and in the event of his acting unreasonably, the purchaser still has the right to apply to the court. We want to provide that where it is possible to apply within three months, the person will do so. It is only where it is impossible——

The Minister is using the words "apply within three months".

Provided he has applied within three months, if the Registrar is not in a position to complete the registration formalities within the three months' period, he must, of course, grant an extension.

I should like to point out to the Minister that he is going to impose very great difficulty and strain on legal practitioners. Ordinarily what happens is that a dealing is lodged with the Land Registry for registration and the solicitor lodging that dealing does not hear anything more about it until he gets notice saying the dealing is completed, except in a case where queries are raised by the Land Registry. If I lodge a dealing for registration in the morning, I regard the case as closed unless I hear something from the Land Registry raising some query. Suppose I do not hear from the Land Registry for four months. Under the section, it is out. The application to have the time extended should come presumably from the person who has lodged the dealing, and he does not know anything about it. Will the Land Registry say to the solicitors: "We want to give you warning that you have lodged a dealing and we have not got it registered."

In that case, surely the Registrar would, of his own volition, grant an extension. The section does not stipulate that an extension must be applied for.

No, but it does not give the Registrar any power in the event of the case being missed by the Registrar, on the Minister's statement.

I should like to direct the Minister's attention to another case. He regards three months as being sufficient for the normal case, but he must take notice of the position, as indicated by Deputy Sweetman with regard to schemes of building development and building estates. In such a case, quite apart from the question of non-nationals—the case to which I have already referred—the ordinary procedure is that the intending purchaser enters into a building agreement and an agreement for a lease with his builder or developer. Generally speaking, once he has done that before the house is erected on the site, he is liable only for whatever stamp duty is attracted by the site fine and the ground rent imposed in the lease.

The Adjudication Office must satisfy themselves in those circumstances as to what was the stage of erection of the house, not on the date of the lease, but on the date on which the contracting documents were entered into. In order to satisfy themselves on that, they normally require the solicitors to obtain from the county council or the local authority a certificate showing the date of commencement. It used to be a certificate showing the various dates of inspection of the building, foundation, roof level, and so on. It takes some time to get that from the local authority. I have had cases where it took several weeks to get that simple certificate from the local authority. It is virtually an invariable requirement of the Adjudication Office in the case of building estates, and a month or eight weeks would be eaten up while waiting for that certificate.

When you get the certificate, the officials in the Adjudication Office may still have some doubts. They may look at the date of commencement as given on the local authority certificate, and compare it with the date on the contracting documents and the lease, and still be in doubt as to whether the house was erected, or substantially erected, on the date of the contracting documents. They may write to the solicitor concerned and ask him to furnish a statutory declaration from the builder setting out the various stages of the development. That also takes some time. The builders have to look up their records to try to find out what stage the house had reached on particular dates; that has to be put in the form of a statutory declaration by the solicitor; and the matter is relodged in the Adjudication Office. That would be a perfectly normal, unexceptional case. It is not a case of a non-national, or anything else, so I think the Minister is misleading himself when he talks about three months being sufficient for the normal case.

If it could be done within three months, would that not be desirable?

It would be done. No client will allow his solicitor to sit down on it. The Minister may scoff at solicitors——

I presume he does not intend to. Generally speaking, he may take it, to use his own phrase, that the norm is that the solicitor will try to get the dealing in as quickly as he can.

And get his title registered.

When does the Minister propose to bring the Act into operation?

To start extending compulsory registration?

No, the commencement date for the Act.

I would say in about three months.

The Minister has delivered himself to me completely. It is utterly impossible for the Minister to get anything like all his ten day streamlining in three months. The Minister is not merely depending on the Land Registry as one entity under his control. In addition, he has got to consider in these cases the local authority and the Land Commission. The Minister, as a Deputy representing a city constituency, had not much to do with the Land Commission. Those of us who represent rural constituencies do not regard the Department of Local Government as being synonymous with speed. Had the Minister, as a Deputy, any experience of that Department?

A great deal.

Did he discover that speed and that Department were synonymous? I am sure he did not. Apart from that, the Revenue Commissioners do deal with this problem very speedily. However, it is just not practical in the year 1964 to have a three-month limit without a flood of extension orders by the Registrar. Why put the Registrar to that trouble and why put people to the trouble of getting extension orders from him?

The Minister suggested the Registrar would give an automatic extension. I should be amazed if the Registrar took upon himself the responsibility of automatically extending anything that comes in for a period beyond the three months. If he does not, it will mean a system of diarising for practitioners that it will be virtually impossible to keep without mistakes occurring. There is no loophole in this section for the genuine mistake. If there is a genuine mistake, there is no loophole at all here because the application must be made within the three months.

The application for the extension?

Let me give the Minister an example. These things should not happen but they occasionally happen in all offices—solicitors' offices, accountants' offices and everywhere else. A small transfer is given to a clerk for stamping. I say "small" because the money is given in ready money. It is not stamped and the money unfortunately goes into his pocket instead of on to the deed.

It goes on the favourite in the 2.30.

Yes. In order to cover up, that clerk hides the deed away in the papers and pretends he has lodged it for registration in the Land Registry. After a while, the solicitor concerned, unless he keeps the most elaborate system of diarising, asks: "What happened to that case? Why is it not through?" At present, we lodge documents and we hear nothing more until we get back the printed slip saying that the dealing is completed and that the registration is completed. In such circumstances as I have mentioned, we ask: "What happened to it?" and we find that the person concerned has not done what he was sent out to do and that the three months have gone. I accept that solicitors are liable for the acts of their servants but there is no method of applying to the court because the three months' period has passed.

This section does not deal with applications. It speaks about registration. It deals only with title passing on registration. The Registrar can extend the time for registration as long as he likes—12 months, two years, at his discretion. If he is satisfied that there is some bona fide reason, he can say: “I am prepared to register this title now”.

"...Unless, within three months after such conveyance, ...(or at such later time as the Registrar...)" As that stands there, it would undoubtedly be interpreted that the Registrar must make his extending order within three months.

That is not intended.

It may not be intended—I accept that from the Minister—but his intention is not effective.

We shall straighten that out, if necessary. I shall go this far with the Deputy. I shall undertake to make inquiries from the places which seem to be the main sources of worry, that is, the Stamping Office, the Department of Local Government, and so on.

And the Land Commission and the local authority. The Minister will have to inquire from 27 local authorities.

Having regard to what emerges from these inquiries, if I am satisfied that the period of three months is too short, then I shall undertake to extend it in the Seanad to whatever we think it should be.

In making these inquiries, a lot will depend on how the inquiry is put. I should be quite happy with that undertaking if the Minister would, even in summarised form, give the arguments that have been put up.

I would visualise that these would be practical on-the-spot inquiries between officials.

Supposing an inquiry were to be made in the Adjudication Office. It would be put in this form: "Take the ordinary case coming in to you. How long does it take from the time it is lodged to the time it is assessed?" The answer might quite truthfully and honestly be "seven days". But, if you were to put it to the Adjudication Office: "In the case of a building lease lodged for adjudication, what are your ordinary requirements and, roughly, what time would it take to comply with them?", that is a different situation. I should like to see the second question put to them.

At any rate, it is more a question of building development cases. In relation to the other point the Minister made, I do not hold myself out as a certainty in interpretation but, with the wording of the phrase in parenthesis, it seems clear as crystal that it would mean what the Minister says he intends it to mean if it were amended to read: "(or at such later time as the Registrar or, in case of his refusal, the court may at any time sanction...)". Without that, it seems to me it must be read in reference to the period of three months.

We shall consider that aspect. As of now, I am quite clear in my mind what we want.

Yes. I thought the Minister deliberately wanted something else.

I withdraw this amendment in view of the Minister's undertaking.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 2 not moved.
Section 25 agreed to.
SECTION 51.

I move amendment No. 3:

In subsection (2), page 21, to add to the subsection "but on registration the estate of the transferee in such land shall date from the date of such instrument."

When we were dealing with the previous amendments, the Minister referred to this question of the equitable estate in the land. Dealing with transfers, subsection (1) of section 51 provides:

Subject, in the case of a limited owner, to the Settled Land Acts, a registered owner of land may transfer the land or any part thereof, and the transferee shall be registered as owner of the land transferred.

Subsection (2) provides:

There shall be executed on the transfer an instrument in the prescribed form, or in such other form as may appear to the Registrar to be sufficient to convey the land, but until the transferee is registered as owner of the land transferred, that instrument shall not operate to transfer the land.

I do not know whether that was deliberate or not but, as a preliminary, I want to raise this query. It concerns the phrase: "any estate in the land." Is it deliberately designed to cut out the question of an equitable estate rather than a legal estate in the land?

My amendment is simply for clarification. It seeks that the Minister should add to subsection (2) on page 21 the words:

"but on registration the estate of the transferee in such land shall date from the date of such instrument."

I think that is certainly the intention of section 25. It is set out in section 25. It seems to me that it should be set out in this section also.

I am informed that Deputy O'Higgins's amendment would cut across the whole principle of registration, namely, that the register is at any given moment conclusive evidence of the title to the land. If we were to relate back the registered estate to the date of the instrument, that whole procedure and position would be nullified.

Is that not done in section 25?

I think it is, if the Minister examines it, line 9 on page 14: "his title shall relate back to the date of execution...."

Section 25 refers only to the first registration of unregistered land. "In any case in which registration becomes compulsory"— these are the opening words of section 25. In section 51 we are dealing with a transaction in land which is already registered.

Would the Minister examine this further? If the Minister makes me an offer to purchase land and I accept it, the Minister pays over his money and I give him a duly executed deed of transfer. Surely the Minister is entitled to regard himself as the owner of the land from the date on which he pays his money and gets his deed——

So I am. I have the inchoate ownership.

But the fact is that under subsection (2) of section 51, he will not have any estate in the land until registration takes place.

I will not have the registered estate. That is so.

That may be all the Minister intends but it is not what the Bill says. It says he will not have any estate in the land. I think the position should be that the test which is running down through this Bill is registration but that as from the date of registration, once he is registered, it should relate back to the date of the instrument. Otherwise, there will be a lot of gaps and difficulties. I do not know where the Minister will get if he is not going to provide for that.

Section 51 merely re-enacts the existing law, that when you execute a deed of transfer of land you transfer to me certain rights in regard to that land but I do not get the registered ownership of the land until I register. That is all. Deputy O'Higgins wants to relate the registered ownership to the time of the execution of the original transfer and that would mean——

——that, in the interim period, the register would not be conclusive evidence of the ownership of the registered estate.

The Minister is misreading the amendment. It is a question of the law involved here. What I am saying is that on registration the estate of the transferee in such land shall date from the date of such instrument, not the question of his being registered as owner at all. You would have a ridiculous position arising otherwise. Take the example I gave already. If the Minister buys land from me, pays his money and gets his deed and then lodges it for registration and it is not registered for a couple of months, under the Minister's proposal here, he is not the owner of the land and has no estate in it. I still have the estate in the land and I could sell that estate.

But I would have my inchoate right——

You would have no right in the land. I think, with all respect, that this is a matter the Minister should examine. It is not a matter to theorise about but a matter of grave practical importance to the vendor and the purchaser and to their legal advisers.

As I understand the position, when you execute your transfer, you get an inchoate right to have the registered estate in the land transferred to you.

You have that already from the date of the contract.

That is what I mean —from the date of the contract.

I am talking about from the date of the actual deed when I have signed, sealed and delivered to you.

"Delivered" being the last act.

The Minister probably knows it is necessary to sign, seal and deliver and that form of execution has not been altered.

There is nothing at that stage except in equity. I have only an inchoate right to be registered as owner, but the only estate is the registered estate and that can only come to you when you register.

I think the Minister should examine this further.

I will. In these technical matters, I am always prepared to do that.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed: "That section 51 stand part of the Bill."

Do I understand that the purpose of subsection (3) is to provide that a land certificate will be issued as a matter of course after registration and without application? Is that the Minister's intention?

Yes, provided the fee is paid.

That is what I was going to ask about. Will it be incorporated in the same fee?

Section 14 (3), I believe, governs that.

There was one very famous—"was" implies he is dead; he is not—solicitor in this city who enjoyed a very large practice. He made it a habit, if he got a land certificate for any client of his, always to return it to the Land Registry for cancellation because there was a danger that otherwise it might be lost by his client or somebody else. It seems now this particular practitioner would not be allowed to operate in that way because of the effect of this section. Surely he should be permitted to do so.

Subsection (3) of section 14 provides for the fee. I gather Deputy Sweetman is not worried about that. I assume that subsection (3) of section 51 is really an enabling section, or rather more than enabling section——

It is mandatory.

It is, but I still do not think it would dispense with the technical requirement of a person applying for a land certificate.

It seems to me that I must pay a land certificate fee, whether I like it or not, or else the registrar must give me one for nothing.

You must pay a fee. That is certainly covered.

Why should I, if I do not want it.

Does it not go a bit further? The Minister is probably aware that very often people, when registered, do not apply for a land certificate for perhaps years later, if they want one.

Let me give an instance of a case that I happen to know is going through the Land Registry at the moment. A certain person is buying various small pieces of land for a certain highly laudable purpose. As they come in, he proposes to consolidate them into one title. He does not want a land certificate until he has got all his 27 little pieces. He will have to get one——

If you read the two sections together, you will discover that the certificate will be issued only if the fee is paid.

But it is mandatory.

If the Minister is right, then there is an obvious conflict between the two sections.

Not really; I do not think so. Section 51 is really a section which makes it mandatory on the registrar to issue a land certificate and section 14, subsection (3), clearly says that no land certificate shall be issued unless the fee is paid. If the purchaser does not want a certificate, the simple thing is not to pay the fee.

It says "requiring or authorising anything to be done".

I want again to take refuge in this famous "out" of mine, that this is the existing law and it has been working satisfactorily. You will see on the sidenote that it refers to section 35 of the 1891 Act.

Is the Minister sure of that?

I have not got the 1891 Act with me.

It is in section 35 of the 1891 Act. On the registration of a transfer, the Registrar shall deliver a land certificate.

Then I agree with the Minister, but if I get a bill for my 27 little pieces, I will not pay it; I will make the Minister pay it.

Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 62.

Amendment No. 4 is in the name of Deputy M. J. O'Higgins, and perhaps amendment No. 5 could be discussed with it.

I move amendment No. 4:

Section 52: in subsection (2), page 21, line 49, to delete "it" and substitute "the registration shall carry a note to that effect and the transfer".

The point involved here is simply to require that there shall be some note on the folio or the land certificate when a voluntary transfer is made. The Minister is probably aware that there is this difference between Land Registry titles and Registry of Deed titles. Normally in a Registry of Deed title, the purchaser's solicitors are furnished with copies of documents for whatever period is prescribed in the contract and consequently they are in a position to examine that title. If the last deed on it is a voluntary deed, one without valuable consideration, and if the grantor were to die within three years, then the question of the liability of the property for death duties and estate duties would arise and the solicitor is on notice and will ask for a certificate in discharge of death duties from the Estate Duty Office and will allow his client to complete.

But when you are dealing with Land Registry title, all you get is a copy of the land certificate or a copy of the folio. You do not get copies of the deeds of transfer which have preceded the date of the contract. Consequently the solicitor has no notice at all of whether or not the conveyance might have been a voluntary one. I am suggesting in these two amendments that as the people who have the notice and knowledge of it are the Land Registry officials when the dealings are presented to them for registration, they should indicate by a note on the folio what the position is. I do not think there would be any great difficulty for them and I should think it would be a considerable ease to the minds of many practitioners and their clients.

This is very largely a theoretical matter from my point of view. I understand it was the practice in former times to put such a note on the folio but this practice disappeared about 40 years ago on the instructions of the then Registrar, who, I am also led to believe, was one of the greatest authorities on all these matters. In his opinion, any question of how the owner became registered is no concern of the purchaser.

The law has been altered since then with regard to estate duties.

Surely the proper procedure for the purchaser is to deal with it by way of requisition on title in the normal way?

That is not a complete answer.

I am told there is a further theoretical objection in this way, that you might actually put a purchaser at a disadvantage, because a purchaser is under no obligation to make inquiries about anything that does not appear on the folio, whereas, if you put an entry on the folio, you are possibly fixing him with notice of a particular matter and imposing an obligation on him that should not be there.

I do not want to appear to be dogmatic but I think it was as recently as 1958 or 1959— possibly it may have been 1960—that the last Distribution of Estates Act was passed and under that Act the situation was altered and in these cases it is quite definite that the estate duty will attach to the property, irrespective of whether it is sold or not.

I understand this is a section 47 burden.

I may be inaccurate in what I am stating——

This is a burden which affects without registration.

There is no change there; that has always been so.

Since 1942?

Since 1894.

Section 47 of the Act of 1891 and the Finance Act, 1894, section 18, and the 1942 Act.

The main thing is the Finance Act of 1894.

That is the Act which created estate duty but succession duty was there from the 1891 Act.

Under section 47.

The point is quite a simple one. As I understand the position, if there is a voluntary transfer of property and the donor dies within three years, then estate duties will attach to the property. The duty can be recovered by the Revenue Commissioners but unless there is some notice of that on the folio, neither the purchaser nor his solicitor will know about it at the time the contract is placed. He can raise his requisition on title later and may be blandly told: "This is so".

But these burdens take effect whether there is registration or not, so that registration does not add to or take from the situation.

That is so with regard to liability, but it does add to the situation in that it gives the purchaser notice and he can require the vendor to take the necessary steps to discharge and, if necessary, to allocate part of the purchase money. It is not the question of registration qua registration that is important. As the Minister says, quite rightly, it takes effect without registration. Would the Minister look into that also?

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section 52 agreed to.
Amendment No. 5 not moved.
Section 55 agreed to.
SECTION 59.

I move amendment No. 6:

In subsection (1), page 23, line 16, before "Nothing" to insert "Subject to subsection (2) hereof".

Perhaps amendment No. 7 could be discussed with amendment No. 6. One decision should suffice.

This again is a simple point which will make the Bill tidier and will be of certain value to purchasers of registered land. Section 59 (1) provides:

Nothing in this Act shall affect the provisions of any enactment by which the alienation, assignment, subdivision or sub-letting of any land is prohibited or in any way restricted.

Subsection (2) provides:

It shall be the duty of the Registrar to note upon the register in the prescribed manner the prohibitive or restrictive provisions of any such enactment;

Then it continues:

but such provisions shall be, though not registered, burdens on the land under section 72.

I am suggesting to the Minister that he should bring about a situation whereby, if the Registrar, contrary to what he is supposed to do under the Act, does not, in fact, make such a note on the register, then in the absence of such noting, whatever prohibitive or restrictive provision should have been registered will not be effective.

As Deputy O'Higgins pointed out, if we were to accept these amendments, it would mean that the statutory prohibitions against alienation would have to be noted on the register and, if they were not so noted, they would be inoperative. I am told that, as a matter of practice, statutory prohibitions against alienation are always entered on the register. However, in a number of cases transactions in contravention of the prohibition are declared void by the relevant statute. For that reason, it is necessary to continue the provision that these prohibitions shall affect registered land without being registered. If we did not do this, a transaction which is in contravention of a statutory prohibition would be validated by registration where the prohibition was inadvertently omitted from the register.

I do not think we could contemplate that situation. We must accept that the paramount thing here is the statutory prohibition. It would be undesirable to have a situation in which a simple omission to put a note on the register would enable the statutory prohibition to be overcome.

The whole attraction of this Bill from the public's point of view would be that the purchaser will get a State guaranteed title.

I agree that this provision is, to some extent, in derogation of that attractiveness.

Under section 59, the Minister is imposing a definite obligation on the Registrar, with which I agree, that he should note any restrictive or prohibitive provision on the folio. If the Registrar falls down on that and does not do it, it is abundantly clear that anyone buying land and inspecting the folio, with the knowledge that this section is here and that there is an obligation on the Registrar to show these restrictive provisions, and seeing they are not shown on it, must assume there are no restrictive or prohibitive provisions. On that understanding, he then enters into a contract to purchase land, possibly for the purpose of building development. He does so, quite secure in the belief that he can develop that land without any prohibition or restrictive condition imposed by any Act of Parliament in relation to that land.

When he gets his transfer and succeeds in getting himself registered, he then proceeds to develop the land as a building site, and the Land Commission step in and say: "You are not entitled to do this because under such-and-such an Act, you may not subdivide or sublet without our permission." He does not know anything about that until then. He has paid his money, got his deed and had himself registered. He then finds that because of a slip in the Land Registry, he has been completely misled. I see the Minister's point of view but I should like to know from the Minister how it is proposed to deal with such a situation.

The Minister would have to pay. It is as simple as that.

The statutory prohibition against alienation must take precedence. In that case somebody suffers, but we cannot get behind the statutory prohibition. We cannot have a situation where it would be wiped out simply because of inadvertence to put a note on the register.

It is more than inadvertence. It may be inadvertence but is it not also a breach of a statutory duty?

Technically, the duty is on the Registrar to put the note there.

The person would have an action against the Minister for Finance, I suppose.

The Deputy should not put bad thoughts into people's heads.

The only difference is that we are paying, as part of our taxes, the insurance premium for it and in our business we have to pay the insurance premium to avoid similar things ourselves.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 7 not moved.
Section 59 agreed to.
SECTION 67.

I move amendment No. 8:

To delete subsection (2).

I really cannot understand what is behind this provision.

That is because the Deputy is bringing a Registry of Deeds mentality to bear on the Land Registry.

I am talking very much in regard to the Land Registry. Surely one would normally expect that the land certificate would be held by the owner of a charge? What the Minister is doing here is contrary to what I certainly would regard as a normal provision. I speak subject to correction on this but, to my mind, if the owner of registered land wants to create a charge in respect of the land certificate by way of equitable deposit in the bank, or anything like that, it is quite an ordinary thing to do. Why should the owner of the charge, whether he be a registered owner or not, not be entitled to hold the land certificate? If the owner of a charge by way of equitable deposit is entitled to hold the certificate, why should the owner of a registered charge, perhaps a very substantial registered charge, not be entitled to hold it?

The possession of the land certificate does not add one jot to the security of a registered charge. The owner of the charge has a certificate of charge and his charge is registered in the Land Registry and that is full and complete security for him.

If he has taken out the certificate of charge.

He does not need the land certificate. It adds nothing to his security. Why, then, deprive the registered owner of this evidence of his title which he may need for other purposes—a second mortgage or even a sale? The sale could only go through subject to the full protection of the charge.

Again, with respect, I would say the Minister is talking without any experience in this matter. Take the position where one person raises money from another by giving a charge on his land and he fails to repay the money.

Wait now. He registers the charge—is that it?

Yes. The registered owner of the charge then wants to realise on his security and under his rights, he sets about arranging a sale of the property and in the meantime the borrower, let us say, has gone to England, America or Australia and is not available. He has brought the land certificate with him. What is the position then of the unfortunate owner of the registered charge?

I am told he does not need the land certificate to enable him to sell in exercise of his powers as a registered chargeant.

Only if he is selling as a mortgagee in possession, surely?

No. Deputy O'Higgins would be right in what he is suggesting, or, at least, he could have an arguable case, if the land certificate added one jot to the security of the chargeant.

Of course, it does.

I suggest to the Minister that it does. I think the Minister, in addition to talking without any very great knowledge of the particular subject, is also misreading the amendment which I have put down. It is subsection (2) of this section that I am opposed to. Subsection (2) provides that even if both sides are agreeable that the registered owner should hold the land certificate, that cannot be done. I am not objecting to subsection (1) which reads:

The registered owner of a charge shall not, merely by reason of his being such owner, be entitled to the possession of the land certificate in respect of the registered land which is subject to the charge.

But subsection (2) goes on to say:

Every stipulation in relation to a registered charge on land (whether made before or after the creation of the charge) whereby the custody of the land certificate in respect of such land is to be given to the registered owner of such charge shall be void.

Even if both parties agree with their eyes open that for the greater security of the owner of the registered charge he is to hold the land certificate, that cannot be done.

There is no advantage in having it.

There is no point in arguing it out here. I believe there is. I think the Minister is on a very sticky wicket when he is arguing that. I believe there is greater security but, whether for that reason or any other reason, if the two people with their eyes open and with full legal advice agree that the owner of the charge is to hold the land certificate, the Minister says, for no apparent reason, he cannot do it. What is the object of this?

I do not prevent the borrower giving the certificate, but I prevent the lender writing into the deed of charge or mortgage instrument a stipulation that it must be handed over. The borrower can still hand over the certificate.

There is a difference there without a distinction.

As Deputies know, the borrower is not in the strong position as a rule. It is the person or institution that is lending the money who dictates the terms and very likely, or conceivably, they would want to put this in and the unfortunate borrower would not be in a position to resist them.

I should like to warn the Minister that if he persists with subsection (2), he may make things extremely difficult for people who want to buy their houses through building societies, for example. He may find this being quoted as precluding the building society from requiring that, if the house is registered land, the land certificate should be handed over to them as registered owners of a mortgage and he may find building societies' solicitors saying that in those circumstances they will not advise the building societies to advance money on registered land.

They would be entitled to give such advice, as I say, if the land certificate added in any way to their security, but it does not. The history of this matter is, apparently, that, prior to 1942 banks who were lending money on registered land were insisting, for no good reason, on holding on to, or keeping in their possession, these land certificates, to the serious disadvantage of borrowers.

What about the Agricultural Credit Corporation? Can they not ask for it?

They always do.

Is it not universal practice?

They always do, unless you take out a certificate of charge.

In this regard they will be in the same position as anybody else and if they attempt to write in such a stipulation—

That is not what you are saying in the Bill.

They do not do that. They insist on it as a matter of practice. They do not write it in.

The subsection says "every stipulation in relation to a registered charge"—a requisition or request.

Deputy Sweetman is on a different point. He says they do not write it in.

They insist on it in their requisitions and that is a stipulation that is void under that section.

"Every stipulation in relation to such charge shall be void."

It is not "every stipulation in the charge"; it is "every stipulation in relation to the charge". If it were "every stipulation in the charge", I could understand the Minister but it is "in relation to the charge". I think the Minister is making the case as if the subsection read "every stipulation in the charge".

That is the way I am reading it.

It is not that.

That is not what is in the Bill.

I take that to mean a requisition on title, for example—to cover that—or a letter saying so.

Even if it is, let us take it that it still rules out a lender stipulating, apart from the instrument, that the land certificate shall be handed over to him, I think we are still right to prohibit it.

Then you are preventing the borrowing of money.

It does not help him and it does place unnecessary inconvenience on the registered owner.

It adds expenses to the registered owner doing the borrowing because the lender will certainly require the certificate of charge if he does not get the land certificate.

The lender has decided whether or not he will lend the money. This sort of technical difficulty will not interfere with that decision.

The Minister must know that when arrangements are made between the person lending money and the borrower, the title is then investigated by the lender's solicitor who normally sets out the lender's requirements, one of which may be—I do not say invariably it will be but it may be—that the land certificate will be given into the custody of the lender. Both sides agree to that. The Minister now says that that is void and that it will not be allowed after this. It seems to me that the natural result of that will be that in cases where, either because they think they have not great security or for any other reason that they may regard as valid, for example, if they feel that there might be difficulty about realising on that security or anything else, they will be very reluctant to lend money on those conditions.

Let me put this to Deputy O'Higgins: In either his or Deputy Sweetman's experience, has this particular provision given rise to any difficulty since 1942?

Yes. Regularly the position is that the lender's solicitors state: "Either you give me the land certificate or I shall take out a certificate of charge and you will have to pay the extra fees", and regularly, in order to avoid paying the extra fees for the certificate of charge, involving binding in a counterpart of a mortgage in the certificate of charge itself, the land certificate is handed over. That stipulation is avoided here.

If this provision has the effect of making chargeants take out a certificate of charge, then it is all to the good.

The Minister wants to put more expense on the borrowers. If that is so, all right. We shall not forget that when we come to other aspects of the legislation.

Why is this provision in the Bill? Would the Minister be kind enough to tell us that? He has not told us.

It was put in in 1942 at the instance of the then Registrar because he noticed that lenders were insisting on getting certificates into their possession and holding on to them unnecessarily and to the inconvenience of borrowers.

The Minister wants to get the extra fees—that is all it comes down to.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section 67 agreed to.
SECTION 73.

I move amendment No. 9:

In subsection (2), lines 28 and 29, to delete "not, merely by virtue of such registration" and to add at the end of the subsection "unless a note to the contrary appears on the folio".

The principle of this amendment was discussed on an earlier amendment. Therefore, I do not want to repeat the arguments I made in relation to the previous amendment.

In this amendment there is an additional practical consideration. The proposal by Deputy O'Higgins would extend to all existing registered holdings and the Registrar would have to go back and investigate every title already registered and put this note on the folio. On practical grounds alone, this would rule out the proposal.

The question of mines and minerals, we hope, is becoming more important every day.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section 73 agreed to.
SECTION 82.

I move amendment No. 10:

In page 32, line 20, after "Where" to insert ", on an application by the registered owner or other person entitled," and in lines 22 and 23 to delete "may, if he thinks fit and with such qualifications as he considers necessary," and substitute "shall".

Amendment No. 11 may be discussed with this amendment.

I expect that on this occasion the ranks of Tuscany will not forbear to cheer because this amendment is really to meet an object which Deputy O'Higgins is seeking to achieve in amendment No. 11. The Deputy's amendment is unacceptable from my point of view because it does not require an application to be made to the Registrar. My amendment envisages that the object will be achieved through an application by the registered owner.

That is fair enough.

Amendment agreed to.
Amendment No. 11 not moved.
Section 82, as amended, agreed to.
SECTION 84.
Question proposed: "That section 84 stand part of the Bill."

I referred earlier to the arrangement on 19th February last and the Minister asked me if I could name the section I required recommitted. It is this section. The arrangement was that if any section required recommittal, we could recommit it. On this section, my whole difficulty in relation to compulsory registration relates to urban areas and to mapping problems. I should like to refer to the Minister's explanatory memorandum issued with the Bill. It refers to this section which, it says, deals with the maps to be kept in the central office for registration purposes. It goes on:

In practice much of the mapping effected in the Land Registry since 1891 is on maps which have become out-of-date. Furthermore, in the case of some holdings, photo-mapping was used as an emergency measure at one stage.

As I understand it, the significance of that is that in photo-mapping scale does not necessarily correspond. The Minister's memorandum goes on:

Again, in the case of certain building sites it is not possible to show the necessary detail on the available Ordnance Survey Maps and, accordingly, the architects' maps furnished on application for registration have had to be used for the purpose. Subsection (3) is designed to validate the practice which has had to be adopted in the Land Registry in such cases.

Subsection (3) is an entirely new subsection and it is the legislative permission for the practice that has grown up. We are all aware that in the mapping section of the Land Registry the greatest difficulties arise. Delay in obtaining Land Registry maps is at present of the greatest dimensions. The reason for it is that there is not sufficient staff and that the maps there, in the Minister's words, are in many cases entirely out of date. Apart from the maps themselves, the Minister may not be aware that in country areas you will find you cannot read the maps because of their condition. They have become so frail and so worn in certain places that they are quite unreadable and it seems to me that where that is so, it would be of very great benefit to bring these maps properly up to date before tackling the general job.

Regardless of that, in rural areas the task is capable of fulfilment. However, I came across a case the other day where I found it was possible to read the maps through reconstruction from a key which can be had on payment of a fee. In that way I got what I wanted and a great deal more cheaply, I might say, than if I had spent my own time or the time of my staff on it. I got an excellent job done on payment of the fee. That was in a rural area and the map had got wrinkled and impossible, otherwise, of verification.

When we come to urban areas, the situation is entirely different. The plain fact of the matter is that the basic system of mapping which we have in the Land Registry is totally and entirely unsuited to urban areas. We have not got in urban areas throughout the country an adequate basis of mapping suitable for re-mapping all the titles necessary for the compulsory registration of urban areas, as this Bill provides. The 25-inch map will not do it. Subsection (3) is the proof it will not do it and cannot do it. If the existing Ordnance Survey maps were adequate for the job, there would not be any necessity for subsection (3).

There was an amendment put down by Deputy O'Higgins, which the Minister treated with scant courtesy, that urban areas should be excluded. I know the exclusion of urban areas would spoil the homogeneous nature of the Minister's plan. The fact is that it is not within the Minister's competence, nor within the competence of the Land Registry, to provide a scheme of registration for the urban areas until, first, there has been a re-mapping of urban areas on an entirely different scale.

It is a pity the Minister has allowed what is undoubtedly a blot on his Bill to remain, because in other respects the general movement towards registration in rural areas is a desirable move, particularly when the amount of freehold registered land in rural areas is so microscopic compared with the number of cases where compulsory registration has been going through under the Land Acts. The whole effect of section 84 will be that in urban areas we shall have, not an easy system, but a chaotic system. We are trying to do a job which is not capable of being done.

In relation to the vast majority of registered land, a job has been done on that initially by the surveyors for the owners and then a substantial verification of that survey, not on the maps but on the land, by the Land Commission surveying officials. As it went through the Land Commission Court, the effect of the application of that map to the task of the Land Commission has been that a great many imperfections have been ruled out. Although the boundaries are not binding, by and large they are right. You get the odd case where the boundaries are not as accurate as one would wish. All this will mean that you will have in urban areas a vast addition of registered land on maps that are not good enough for the purpose. You are going to get one architect for one housing estate putting in a map to one scale and in one manner and another architect for another housing estate putting in a map on a different basis. Instead of getting what the Minister wants—an easy method of getting the picture of the titles in an urban area— he will get exactly the reverse, one that will be much more confusing and much more open to mistakes.

I do not know why the Minister wanted to gallop before he was able to walk. It seemed clear to me that the mapping situation was such that the method we have adopted heretofore in the Land Registry was not adequate. The Minister would have been wiser to have taken all his rural land and brought in compulsory registration virtually at once. He could do it. If urban areas were excluded— when I talk of "urban areas", I am not necessarily talking in terms of the Local Government Act of 1898; I am talking of built-up areas—the rest of the picture could have been completed fairly quickly.

Now, however, we shall have a situation in which the map in relation to any urban area will be virtually no use. In a situation in relation to urban titles where there are two flats in a house, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to show that on the same map. You are going to have to have in a very small space on the map the registration, perhaps, of half a dozen different interests and indexing on the map will be virtually impossible. The whole system or registration fails completely unless one is able to go down to the Land Registry, pick up the map, look at the place on the map in respect of which one wishes to find the owner, trace that place and, by going to the index, see who is the registered owner of folio No. So-and-So. In urban areas, it will be impossible to do so. So long as it is so impossible, the task of the registration of urban areas is not going to achieve anything. In fact, it will make the system more confusing than it is already in the case of unregistered land.

I must confess I am one of those people who like on every possible occasion for any deed, be it for registration or otherwise, to try to get a map on that deed. It saves immense trouble. If I have not a map on one of the earlier deeds of conveyance, I try to get a new map. I try to describe my parcels with reference to that map. But the map in relation to which my description is made is a map that has been made, not on paper, but on the spot. That is one place where section 84 will completely fall down, because it visualises that the Land Registry in relation to urban areas will be built up on a system of maps not verified by any Land Registry officials on the spot, as the rural areas were verified by the surveyors for the Land Commission. That will be one of the fundamental failures in relation to this Bill. So long as the Minister keeps the method he has adopted in this system, he will find that discrepancies will grow and grow, and he will have in relation to those discrepancies very considerable difficulties in the future.

I happened to know a case in which I was asked to intervene as a Deputy, not a case in which I was dealing professionally, where a builder down the country—he alleged it was through one person's mistake and somebody else said it was through another's— had slightly diverged from the original plan. In fact, when you looked at the original plan produced for the Land Registry, it was impossible for anyone to tell the divergencies because the scale was much too small. The scale in relation to all Ordnance Survey maps would be much too small. It took something like nine months in circuit court cases to rectify six folios and, pending that rectification, in five cases, documents were held up for nine months. It was somebody's mistake perhaps—not anybody's fault in the ordinary sense of the term. It just arose from the fact that the scale was too small to cope with the problem. The Minister will find that is fundamental to the problem of registering titles in an urban area.

Imagine a plot in O'Connell Street and what it will look like even on the 25-inch scale. It may not be desirable, but, in fact, I know of one plot, a reasonably sized shop in O'Connell Street, where there are eleven different interests, one above the other. I do not say it is desirable. I do not think it is, but they are there, and it will not be possible on any of the existing ordnance maps to find room to put eleven different references to its folios. You will have to adopt a most cumbersome scheme of coding in which you nearly want a deciphering expert to discover when you look at a folio what the exact mapping characteristic in the Land Registry is, because of the different interests concerned.

The Minister has completely ignored the fact that in relation to rural land, the fundamental reason for registering land was that there was to be one interest and only one interest. Leaving out the executions of mines and minerals and leaving out spoiling rights, there is only one interest in rural land and there is no superior interest in land that is registered as such because these varying interests have been redeemed in the Court of the Land Commission. It was because the superior interests were redeemed in the Court of the Land Commission that the whole system of the registry of land under the 1891 Act became successful. Indeed, the Minister is trying to short-circuit it and is trying to do something that is quite impossible in our circumstances here. Instead of making a register that will be not merely complete but easy to understand and clear, he is going to emerge with something for an urban area that will make confusion worse confounded in what otherwise might be quite a good Bill.

First of all, I want to make it clear that this Bill will not of itself extend compulsory registration to any single area in the country. It merely gives us a legislative basis on which we can proceed step by step to extend compulsory registration. I have already said on a number of occasions, in the course of discussions in the House on this Bill, that we will not extend compulsory registration provisions to any area until we are satisfied that we can cope with the situation which will result from such action. Of course the mapping situation will be one of the very important factors which we will keep in mind in deciding whether or not to extend compulsory registration to any particular area. I am told, first of all, in regard to this country, that there are a number of urban areas for which adequate maps exist and, furthermore, that in some towns, like Thurles, for instance, the majority of the premises in the town are already registered in the Land Registry. In London, of course, they seem to have got over the difficulties to which Deputy Sweetman has referred and which he regards as insuperable. I am told that in London at the moment this system of registration of urban property works satisfactorily and well.

Indeed, there are properties in Dublin which are at present registered in the Land Registry. The reconstruction of the existing Land Registry maps, which I agree with Deputy Sweetman are to some extent defective, is proceeding and we have in operation at the present time an arrangement for a survey of the whole position in regard to these maps and an expert study of the situation. We will, of course, only introduce compulsory registration in urban areas when we are satisfied that suitable maps of a sufficiently large scale are available. We are in touch with the Ordnance Survey people about this whole problem. We have their expert advice at our disposal and, from what we can gather, there is, at this stage at any rate, no grounds for believing that any insuperable difficulties will arise, provided of course we proceed in a sane and rational manner and do not extend compulsory registration to any area until we are satisfied we have the mapping facilities and resources to take it on. It is also accepted Government policy that the whole country should be re-surveyed within the next 10-15 years. That process of re-surveying will be going on side by side, I hope, with our gradual expansion of compulsory registration throughout the country.

I want again to reassure Deputies in regard to this Bill that we are not going to rush into anything. We are not going to impose on the Land Registry machinery a burden which it cannot bear. We must be satisfied, on the administrative side, on the mapping side and in all directions, that we can proceed to extend the provisions of the Bill to any particular area, whether urban or otherwise. If we have the capacity to take on an urban area for which suitable large-scale maps are already in existence, I do not see why we should not attempt to do so as soon as possible.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

A little learning.

A little knowledge because——

The Deputy is not crediting the Minister with having learned it.

——he was foolish enough to refer to the practice in London and the London registration. Does the Minister know how development work is done in urban areas in the Land Registry in England? Does he know that the basis of mapping there is that the Ordnance Survey people revise every three months while a development is going through and that the maps in relation to the building development area in England are brought up not by the developer himself putting in a map which fits into the Ordnance Survey as such but the developer putting up a map which the Ordnance Survey revise on the spot not less than once every three months after the development work has started. If and when the Minister is able to tell me that the Ordnance Survey here has been so staffed as to enable that to be done, then there might be some point in his quoting the London system to us but, until such time as that is the position, he would, I think, be wiser not to quote the London system.

We sent our people over there to see exactly how they do things.

Yes. I have a statement in my hand from the British Registrar, which I took the trouble to get in order to ascertain the position and, therefore, I am not talking without knowledge of the facts. Unfortunately, whoever went over for the Minister did not bring back all the information, or else the Minister did not fully assimilate his brief, which has been known to happen, and he is ignorant of the fact that it is checked on the estate not less than every three months by the Ordnance Survey surveyors.

The only thing I want to establish is that it could be done.

It could be done, but not in present circumstances here.

Deputy Sweetman paints a picture of impossibility.

It cannot be done in our existing mapping situation at all. It is quite undoable, if I may coin a word. I go further and say that the Minister has not even prepared himself for the problem that is involved. On 7th April last, I put the following simple question to the Minister:

To ask the Minister for Justice if he will state as at the latest available date in respect of land registered under the Registration of Title Acts the number of current folios in each (a) county, excluding urban areas, (b) borough, and (c) urban area and the estimated number of holdings which are not registered in (a), (b) and (c) respectively.

I got the information in regard to (a), (b) and (c). I was bound to get it but, at the end of his reply, the Minister said:

I have no information which would enable me to formulate an estimate of the number of unregistered holdings.

That clearly showed that the Minister did not consider the problem at all before he brought in this Bill because anybody bringing in a Bill of this nature would have taken steps to ensure that he understood and appreciated the size of the problem with which he was dealing.

Would Deputy Sweetman bear with me for a moment?

Certainly—several moments if the Minister wishes.

The process we envisage will mean that registration will become compulsory in an area only as and when new dealings for value take place in that area. In other words, all the premises in a particular area will not suddenly be thrown into the lap of the Land Commission.

Nothing will be thrown into the lap of the Land Commission.

Into the lap of the Land Registry. Compulsory registration will arise only when new dealings take place in an area.

How is the Minister to know when a new dealing is going to take place?

The Minister cannot know unless he knows how many holdings there are in an area.

We will be concerned with a particular area. Deputy Sweetman's question related to the country as a whole.

For any area.

We will have to study each area carefully.

In fact, what the Minister wanted to do was to show himself as a bright boy coming here with a new clean-sweep Registration of Title Bill; and he decided he would come in and preen himself before he had done his homework. He should have done his homework first because the Bill will not work until a great deal more homework has been done on it.

He had the bristles for the broom but he forgot the handle.

That is an unworthy suggestion. We do not envisage anything will happen overnight. We envisage a gradual elimination of the Registry of Deeds and the extension of compulsory registration over 15, 20 or 25 years. The procedure envisaged is that an area will be taken and considered to see whether it is feasible to extend compulsory registration to it. It will be done step by step, carefully and, I hope, intelligently. As I said earlier, we will not create a situation in which overnight all the premises in a particular area will be thrown into the lap of the Land Registry. Registration will become compulsory only when there are new dealings involving premises in that area. The process will be a gradual one.

Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 94

Amendments Nos. 12, 13 and 14 can be taken together.

I move amendment No. 12:

In page 35, line 13, before "entitled" to insert "absolutely".

The point here is in relation to liens which may affect deeds. Section 94 provides:

Where—

(a) an application is made for the registration of an owner of land, or

(b) the Registrar has occasion, in the course of his duties, to investigate the title to registered land or to a burden on registered land,

if any person has in his possession or custody any deeds, wills or instruments affecting the title, to the production of which the applicant or any trustee for him is entitled or the production of which the Registrar considers, on any such occasion, to be necessary for the purpose of such investigation, the Registrar may require that person to show cause, within a time limited, why he should not produce such deeds, wills, or instruments, or any of them; and, unless cause is shown to the satisfaction of the Registrar within the time limited, he may order that the deeds, wills or instruments, or any of them shall be produced at the expense of the applicant, at such time and place, and in such manner, and on such terms as he thinks fit.

The Minister is probably aware that, from time to time, it does happen that a client owes a solicitor for costs and the solicitor is entitled to retain the deeds of that client in his possession and have a lien on them until his costs are discharged. As this section is worded, it seems to me it could impinge on a very longstanding legal position in relation to liens of this sort. I feel sure the Minister did not intend that that should be the effect of this section. The suggestions I make in my amendments are designed to clarify the position and to make it clear that these powers, so far as they relate to the requirement to produce or show cause why documents should not be produced, should apply only in cases where there is no lien affecting them. I suggest the insertion of the qualification "absolutely" so that the section will read "if any person has in his possession or custody any deeds, wills or instruments affecting the title, to the production of which the applicant or any trustee for him is absolutely entitled...." The Minister may want time to consider this further. I urge on him that, if he is not satisfied with my amendments, he should himself bring in some amendments on the same lines to meet the point I have raised.

I agree with Deputy O'Higgins. It is not the intention that the Registrar should be in a position to compel the production of documents where they are held subject to a lien or encumbrances. That is the existing practice, of course. The very fact that a person can show that he has a lien on documents will be sufficient cause for the Registrar to indicate that they need not be produced to him.

I am not pressing it if the Minister is satisfied it is not necessary.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 not moved.
Section 94 agreed to.
SECTION 100.

I move amendment No. 15:

In subsection (2), page 38, line 1, to delete all words after "duty".

I want some explanation from the Minister in relation to section 100, which enables trustees to apply to the court for directions and provides for the award of costs which may be finally ascertained and declared by the Registrar. I think the Minister will agree that the taxing and ascertaining of solicitors' costs is a function for the Taxing Masters. I submit to the Minister that there is no valid reason for giving over this function to the Registrar of Titles.

He has it already.

The Taxing Masters are there, in any event. I do not know to what extent the Registrar may already have a function in this regard. The Minister says he has, and I accept that, but if he has it already, that does not alter the validity of the point I am making. For all I know, he may have had it before the office of Taxing Master came into being. At any rate, the position now is that the Taxing Masters are obviously the proper persons to deal with the question of costs, and if the Registrar has power, I do not see any reason why that power should be continued. I suggest to the Minister that he should accept this amendment which involves the deletion of the last 2½ lines of subsection (2).

We are dealing with trustees here, and it has always been the position that, in a case of this sort coming before him, the Registrar could assess the costs and determine them. Unless Deputy O'Higgins can persuade me that there is some very valid and sound reason why the existing practice should be changed, I am in favour of leaving it as it is. It has worked well, and there have been no grounds for complaint. I think it would be a bit of an imposition to make people go to the Taxing Master rather than have the costs settled by the Registrar. I am all for making life easy for people.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section 100 agreed to.
Bill, as amended on Recommittal, reported and agreed to.

That was Report Stage.

That was Recommittal. It is not quite the same thing. We are gradually teaching the Minister the Standing Orders.

I am learning all the time.

Bill received for final consideration and passed.

I was politely yielding to Deputy O'Higgins and letting him speak first on the Fifth Stage. However——

The Deputy had a fairly good innings anyway.

The Deputy has another victim now.

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