asked the Minister for Justice the plans he has to improve the serious delays which occur in the Land Registry in dealing with transfers of title to property; if he is concerned about the large backlog of dealings outstanding which, in many cases, are holding up applications for housing loans and specific instance houses; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Written Answers. - Land Registry Dealings.
911.
Mr. Coughlan
Limerick East): I am informed by the Registrar of Titles that the bulk of the applications for registration of title lodged in the Land Registry are for changes in, or additional, registration in respect of property already registered. There are no undue delays in processing these applications; registrations are effected within an average time scale of about two months.
The Registrar of Titles states that the only area of the Land Registry's work in which significant delays occur is that of first registration, including the establishment of title acquired by possesion. The number of applications in this category constitutes only about 5 per cent of the total number of applications for registration lodged annually in the registry. These applications involve detailed and complex examinations of title and often protracted correspondance with solicitors as well as the issue of statutory notices to interested parties which usually give rise to further correspondence. It is difficult to be precise about average delays but they are unlikely to be less than 12 months in present circumstances.
Remedical measures, involving the redeployment of an examiner of titles from other work and the improvement of the processing procedures, have recently been taken in order to enable applications to be dealt with more quickly. Also, because in many cases delays are caused by incompleteness in the submission of applications to the Land Registry, the Incorporated Law Society proposes to hold a series of seminars for solicitors, which will be attended by Land Registry officials, with the aim of eliminating or at least reducing time-consuming correspondence. The embargo on the creation and filling of public service posts applies to the Land Registry and that limits the possibilities for expediting the rate of completion of cases.
In any case in which it is brought to the attention of the Land Registry that circumstances of special urgency exist, such as bridging finance or housing loans being held up, arrangements are made to have registration expedited as far as possible.