Under this Act the Church Temporalities Commissioners were empowered to sell to tenants of Church Lands their holdings at prices to be fixed by the Commissioners themselves. If the tenants refused to buy on the terms offered to them, the Commissioners could sell to the public. The Church Temporalities Commissioners were empowered, if they thought well, to take payment, as to one-fourth only, in cash and to leave the other three-fourths outstanding as a legal charge on the holding, to be paid off in thirty-two years by sixty-four half-yearly instalments.
The Commissioners sold in all to 6,057 tenants at an average price of twenty-two and two-thirds years' purchase of the rents, and the total amount of the money advanced on loan was £1,674,841, which was issued by the Commissioners of Public Works.
The terms of repayment and the rate of interest charged on loans were afterwards altered and reduced under the Purchase of Land Act of 1885, Section 23.
Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870.
Under what are known as the “Bright Clauses” of this Act, the landlords and tenants of agricultural or pastoral holdings could arrange for a sale of their holdings with State aid to be carried out in the Landed Estates Court. Upwards of two-thirds of the price agreed upon could be advanced by the Board of Works, to be repaid in thirty-five years by an annuity, at the rate of five per cent. on the loan. Under this Act 877 tenants purchased their holdings, and the amount [pg 186] of loans issued was £514,536. The total purchase money paid by the tenant purchasers for their holdings was £859,000, being at the rate of twenty-three and one-third years' purchase of the rents.
The Act of 1881 (the “Gladstone Act”).
Under this Act the Land Commission thereby established was empowered to make advances to tenants for the purchase of their holdings, and was enabled to purchase estates for re-sale to the tenants. The limit of advance was extended from two-thirds of the purchase-money (as in the Act of 1870) to three-quarters. The terms of repayment were the same—an annuity of five per cent. for thirty-five years.
Upwards of 731 tenants purchased under this Act, and the advances made amounted to £240,801. These included advances to 405 tenants on seven estates bought under the Act (Section 26) by the Land Commission in the Landed Estates Court.
The Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1885 (the “Ashbourne Act”).
Under this Act—commonly known as the “Ashbourne Act”—a sum of £5,000,000 was authorised to be advanced to the Land Commission to enable sales to be carried out between landlords and tenants by agreement, and to enable the Land Commission to purchase estates in the Landed Estates Court for the purpose of re-selling them to the tenants. The Land Commission was empowered to advance the entire of the purchase-money subject to the retention of one-fifth by way of guarantee deposit for a period of about seventeen and a half years, by which time an equivalent amount of the capital advanced had been repaid by means of the sinking fund. This deposit [pg 187] could be utilised if the tenant purchaser made default in his repayment, and if the amount in default could not otherwise be recovered. Thus the landlord vendor was made a guarantor for the repayment of the annuity by the tenant purchaser. (Section 3.)