Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 July 2022
707. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if consideration could be given to ensuring no historical title deeds are destroyed as permitted under rule 152 of the Land Registry rules and are instead retained for historical purposes. [40830/22]
View answerThe Property Registration Authority (PRA) which is under the aegis of my Department continues to provide essential services to support the property market. To ensure the maintenance and preservation of its records, the PRA has, with input from the National Archives, developed two comprehensive policies to govern records management, a Records Retention Schedule and Disposal Procedures. These policies recognise the historical value of records it holds as one of three key determining factors for the retention periods of PRA records.
Rule 15 (3) of the Land Registration Rules, 2012, as amended, provides that except as provided in the Rules, deeds and documents under which an entry in the National Land Register is made shall be retained in the Land Registry. The exception relates to attested copies which may be filed in reference to original deeds/documents or cases where the PRA may, on completion of a registration, direct the release of filed documents to the registered owner, their nominee or the solicitor for the registered owner.
All deeds/documents retained in the Land Registry as ‘instruments’ are stored in the PRA’s central filing repository as a working archive. Rule 152(1) provides that the PRA cannot destroy these instruments and certified copies can be made available to persons specified under Rule 159 of the Land Registration Rules.
Rule 152 (4) provides that the PRA, subject to compliance with National Archives Act, 1986, may direct the destruction of closed folios or any documents filed in the Land Registry when they have been superseded by entries in the Register or have ceased to be of any effect, or it may, if such documents appear to it to be of historical interest, transmit them to the National Archives for filing.
A closed folio is a folio for which the title has been transferred to another live folio. All archived paper-based folios, including those which have been closed, are filed offsite under the control of the PRA’s Central Filing Repository. The PRA does not have any plans at present to destroy these documents. A copy of any archived paper-based folio can be obtained upon request to the PRA and lodgement of a prescribed fee.
