The figures set out in this Estimate appear for the first time as a separate estimate. Hitherto they appeared as part of the Estimate of the High Court and Supreme Court. The two offices, the Land Registry and the Registry of Deeds, are under the same chief officer—the Registrar of Titles. There is an increase of about £3,000 in the total cost, caused by the provision of £3,000 under sub-head C for replacing copies of deeds destroyed by fire in the Registry in June, 1922. The cost is incurred in payments to solicitors for looking up the originals in their offices and also the copying of those originals to replace the destroyed copies. The other decreases and increases cancel out and are mainly of a routine character, caused by reason of normal promotion or increasing increments. There is a decrease due to a slightly more economic adjustment in the upper staffing of the deeds office and in the estimate of the number of memorials which will require to be copied in the course of the current financial year.
The Registry of Deeds is a very old office, dating back to the year 1708. Up to 1864 it was maintained out of its own fund, arising from fees. The object of this particular Registry is simply to maintain a well-ordered and well-indexed record of all deeds, conveyances and wills which shall be made of any lands, tenements or hereditaments. The scale of fees charged was laid down by Acts of William IV. and Victoria. Some of them were increased in 1916 by a special Treasury Order. There are about 20,000 deeds registered every year. It is estimated that the fees will yield about £15,000 in the current year. In addition, the Registry does certain work for public Departments without fees—searches ordered by the Land Commission and registration of deeds of charge under the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, when it is certified by the Board of Works that registration of these charges is necessary for the public service.
The Land Registry is the central office for the registration of title to land under the Local Registration of Title Act, 1891. There is also a local office in each county, but the cost of these local offices appears elsewhere, as part of the circuit court organisation. They are under the care of the circuit court officer for the county—the Clerk of the Peace. Most Deputies—and, in particular, Farmer Deputies—will be familiar with the object of the Land Registry. It is to maintain a well-ordered, well-indexed and well-mapped record of the ownership in lands. It is compulsory in the case of land bought out under the Land Acts and subject to Land Commission annuities, and voluntary in the case of other lands. It is gradually superseding the old Registry of Deeds, as the record of transactions of land bought under the Land Purchase Acts is kept in the Land Registry instead of in the Registry of Deeds. The main object of the Registry may be said to be the production on one single folio of a complete and authentic record of the history of each farm in the country, and the exact extent and boundaries of each such farm, illustrated by a map, so that in selling or mortgaging that farm the labour of proving title or proving freedom from incumbrances is reduced to a minimum. Fees are charged on the registration of such transactions and on the supply of copy-folios, but fees are not charged in a compulsory first registration of land bought out under the Land Acts. The first registration is done automatically when the landlord is bought out, the Land Commission passing the papers to the Land Registry for the purpose. The fees were fixed by the Land Judge, with the consent of the Treasury, in the past, and now with the consent of the Department of Finance. The fees were last fixed in 1917, and the new scale came into force on the 1st January, 1918. The fees for the current financial year are estimated to produce about £18,400.
A certain amount of discussion had centred round the question of the extent to which the work of local registration should be done in the central office or in the local county registries. Neither lawyers nor officials are entirely at one in the matter. In actual practice, the local registry does very little except keep duplicate folios and any really serious or critical work is done in the central office. It has been urged that that was hardly the intention when the Act of 1891 was passed, and that the central office has assumed powers and developed to a size and importance that was not contemplated by the Act, while the local registries have shrunk to shadows. On the other hand, the view has been put to me that the existing practice is correct in law and that the only possible practice, if the work is to be done correctly and the records kept in proper order, is the existing practice. Simply standing outside and observing the matter as a problem of administration, I may say that there is a good deal of overlapping as between the central registry and these local registries. Because of that and because of the confusion caused by the disappearance of the judicial head of the office, the Land Judge—there being now no Land Judge as such—it seems that the position of the Land Registry will have to be cleared up by legislation when Parliamentary time allows. I had an idea of introducing a Bill in the current session bearing on the subject and linking that Bill, to some extent, with the Court Officers Bill, which is at present going through, but the matter is not one of very great seriousness or very great urgency, and the Bill has been allowed to wait over. It probably will be introduced in the autumn or next year. It aims simply at a tightening up of the administration and an avoidance of overlapping. It will be introduced in the interest of economy and in the interest of greater administrative efficiency.
