The special ground rents purchase scheme that is administered by the Land Registry under Part III of the Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) (No. 2) Act, 1978, originally had a life of five years and was extended by legislation in 1983 for another year and again in 1984 for a further three years to 31 July 1987. The purpose of this very short Bill is to extend the operation of the scheme indefinitely.
The general right to acquire the fee simple is given by the Ground Rents Act of 1967. That scheme is, in the case of dwellinghouses, supplemented by the simplified and less costly procedure provided by the 1978 Act, which I had the pleasure of initiating. For a fixed fee the Land Registry undertake the legal work involved in the acquisition of the fee simple of dwellinghouses. A considerable number of people have availed themselves of that procedure — the total number of applications received into the Land Registry between 1 August 1978 and 31 May this year was 52,742.
The vast majority of such applications are made by persons in occupation of their dwelling house, who have the consent of the ground landlord to the purchase of the fee simple. The current fee in these "consent" cases is £26. The position following the 1984 legislation is that all fees may be revised by ministerial order but, since the scheme is self-financing on the basis of current fees, I am glad to say that no increase in fees is called for at present.
The Bill does not purport to deal with any substantive issues for the reason that we must get the Bill through if the special purchase scheme is to continue after 31 July next. However, the scheme is now in operation for nine years and it may be that some aspects can be improved. There is, for example, the question of assimilating the scheme more to the ordinary registration functions of the Land Registry taking into account the fact that by virtue of this legislation the scheme would be placed on a permanent footing.
In the context of possible future changes, I want to mention also the question of ground rents payable to local authorities. Many such rents are for nominal amounts, payable if demanded, which are not and were never intended to be collected. The No. 2 Ground Rents Act of 1978 gives local authority lessees the right to buy out their ground rents but it may be that since what we are dealing with here are public sector ground rents further arrangements can and should be made to enable their ground rents to be brought to an end. That is another matter I am having examined.
The scope of the Bill is confined to repealing the provision of the No. 2 Act of 1978 which limits the period within which applications may be made under Part III of that Act. Section 1 proposes the repeal of section 18, as amended by an Act of 1984, of the No. 2 Act of 1978 and its effect will be to ensure that the Land Registry scheme of ground rents purchase shall extend beyond 31 July next. Section 2 is a standard provision in relation to short title, construction and collective citation.
I commend the Bill to the House.