asked the Minister for Justice if he will indicate with regard to a fire in the Land Registry Office when the incident took place and what records were destroyed: and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions Oral Answers. - Land Registry Records.
152.
What the Deputy is referring to was not a fire but a planned destruction of some old legal documents in the Land Registry, which took place in March, 1970. This was a single operation which has not been repeated.
These legal documents, which related to registration made during the years 1892 to 1904, were destroyed by direction of the Registrar of Titles because the accumulation of documents over the years was such that there was no longer sufficient storage space for them and the registrar decided that the documents in question were neither of legal nor of historical value and that accordingly they need not be retained. This decision was made on the basis of the registrar's own experience and that of other officers of the Land Registry familiar with the content of such documents, supplemented by specific sample checking.
Legal powers to destroy documents were expressly vested in the registrar by the Land Registration Rules, 1966, of which rule 181 (4) reads:
The Registrar may also direct the destruction of any documents filed in the Registry when they have been superseded by entries in the Register or have ceased to be of any effect, or he may, if such documents appear to him to be of historical interest, transmit them to the Public Record Office for filing.
I think it right to emphasise that the title of an owner of registered land is based on the register and that the title is guaranteed by the State. In cerain exceptional cases, however, there is a possibility that some portion of certain old documents—I refer specifically to settlements—might still have been "live". I am informed that only one such case has come to notice and, while a delay was caused in that case, the difficulty was resolved through the co-operation of the solicitor concerned and another solicitor. So that there may be no doubt as to the policy to be adopted, I have given specific instructions that if, at any time in the future, any similar difficulty arises from the fact that a pre-1904 settlement has been destroyed, the Land Registry will at all stages take and maintain the initiative with a view to ensuring that the difficulty is resolved satisfactorily, expeditiously and with the absolute minimum of inconvenience either for the client or any solicitor acting for him. I do not for a moment suggest that this is a complete answer to anybody who may be affected but it will at least ensure that inconvenience will be minimised, and the probability is that the cases in question will be very few, if any.
There remains the question of the possible value of some of these documents. I have already indicated that the registrar was satisfied that they were of no historical interest and I have no reason to doubt that assessment as far as concerns their being of any major or general historical interest. On the other hand, I think it reasonable to assume that some documents of that kind might have some local interest, at all events in the sense that any particular landowner, now or in the future, might like to have available as detailed an historical record as possible of his own farm or might like to have an old document such as a vesting order for its intrinsic interest for him; and for this reason, amongst others, the land registration rules were extended last September so as to authorise the registrar, on the completion of a registration, to release documents of this kind to the registered owner.
Even with the practice now authorised under the new rules of handing over some documents to the registered owners, it is unlikely to be possible to store indefinitely, either in the Land Registry or in any other public office, all other documents, including correspondence, concerning land transactions, and a clearing-out may have to take place from time to time. To put the matter in perspective I would mention that it is estimated that the Land Registry still have over 2½ million documents in their custody. However, in order to guard against the possibility that any documents of historical interest, either general or local, might be unwittingly destroyed in this way, and in order also to provide an assurance to interested persons that adequate safeguards exist, explicit arrangements have now been made that, even where the rules allow destruction, no document will in fact be destroyed by the Registrar of Titles without its having first been evaluated by the Public Record Office.
Will the Minister agree that these documents are, in fact, the basis upon which modern historical research is based and will he say whether any consultations with historians and archivists took place before their destruction? Further, will he assure us that in future there will be consultation with historians and architects and that this will not be left to the discretion of the Land Registry, fettered only with consultation with the Public Record Office?
I have already given that assurance.
No.
I have assured the House that the Public Record Office will be consulted. The nature of the documents is such, particularly in relation to this period, that in fact no worthwhile social history will be lost by their destruction because all the relevant details contained in the documents between 1892 and 1904 were transcribed on to the register. That has not been the practice in the last 20 years, or so, for obvious reasons of space and time but, at that time, the relevant details were transcribed on to the register and remain, of course, as part of the register.
Is the Minister satisfied that historians would have the same definition of relevancy as the staff of the Land Registry and has that been checked with historians?
The Public Record Office is staffed by qualified historians and archivists.