In the year 1891 the Local Registration of Title (Ireland) Act was passed. All lands sold under the Land Purchase Acts and vested in purchasing tenants subject to land purchase annuities, are thereby required to be registered in the central or local offices [pg 213] of the Land Registry. There is a local office in each county in Ireland and a central office in the City of Dublin, which is also the local office as regards lands in the county of Dublin. When the holdings are vested in the purchasing tenants by the Land Commission that department furnishes to the Land Registry the necessary particulars for the registration of the lands. These particulars are entered on the registers and the boundaries of the holdings are delineated on the registry maps. A certificate, which is a copy of the folio of the register, is then issued to the purchaser.
All subsequent dealings with the land must be registered, and no estate is acquired by the transferee of registered land until his name is put on the register as owner of the lands transferred (Section 25).
All registered land is divisible on the death of the registered holder intestate “as if it were personal estate” (Section 85).
Lands acquired by Rural District Councils under the Labourers Acts are also compulsorily registered in the Land Register.
The title of each purchasing tenant is registered on the application of the Land Commission and without any application by him. As no investigation of any of these titles is possible, each holding is registered “subject to equities,” that is, subject to any rights of third persons interested in the land. Before a transfer of the holding is executed these equities are, as a rule, discharged.
When the work of the Land Purchase Acts has been completed, practically the whole land of Ireland will be registered. The principal effect of such registration will be to facilitate the sale of land by reducing the cost and simplifying the process of transfer. Registration of title exists wherever a peasant proprietary [pg 214] has been established. It is almost a necessary concomitant of such ownership.
The Irish Act has been conceived on right lines, but it will in the near future need much amendment.
It needs simplification. The process of registration is too complicated and too slow; there are too many burdens on the lands which do not require registration, and in consequence, there are too many matters which, on a sale, must be inquired into and so add to the price of transfer. Above all, registered land should be declared to be personal property and should not merely be made to descend “as if it were personal estate.” These words have already on numerous occasions occupied the attention of the judges, and their full meaning has not yet been made clear. The effect of the various decisions is that, while registered land descends on a death intestate to the next of kin as if it were personal estate, for every other purpose it is to be regarded as “real estate.” To a lawyer the position is full of interest; to the ordinary layman it is absurd; for the community it is most mischievous.