The Gazette 1967/71

In 1925, besides further simplifying convey ancing, the reforming measures abolished a num ber of historical survivals (e.g. the Statute of Uses 1535, the rule in Shelley's Case, future interests) and in a number of ways assimilated the law of real property to that of personal property. The key to this process is undoubtedly the over-reaching device whereby a large number of interests of a non-commercial character affecting land cease to encumber that land on a sale taking place, and instead attach themselves to the purchase money. As an essential corollary to this scheme the number of legal estates (the title to which must be investigated on transfer) were reduced to two, the fee simple absolute in possession and the term of years absolute, other interests being equitable and behind a "curtain" beyond which a purchaser may not investigate. Consequently interests such as life estates became equitable, and also over-reachable under the provisions of the Settled Land Act 1925. Since 1926 in England it can truly be said that the normal conveyancing transaction presents few if any difficulties of theory. This is no doubt par^y due to the decline in popularity of complex settlements, but it is also a further tribute to this brilliant conceptual frame work, the foundations of which were laid in the nineteenth century and the final manifestation of which occurred in 1925. Northern Ireland In 1970 the substantive land law stood (and still stands) in much the same position as that of English law prior to the Birkenhead legislation. Significant exceptions are the Administration of Estates Act ,N.I.) 1955 (similar to the Adminis tration of Estates Act 1925 (U.K.)), the Trustee Act (N.I.) 1958 (almost identical to the Trustee Act 1925 (U.K.), and the Perpetuities Act (N.I.) 1966 (similar to the Perpetuities and Accumul ations Act 1964 (U.K.)). In addition, of course, the substantive law of landlord and tenant had been to a large extent codified in Ireland by Deasy's Act (Landlord and Tenant Amendment (Ireland) Act 1860). Impetus was given to the idea of reform by the appointment in 1958 of a Committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Lowry to examine 206

LAND LAW REFORM PROPOSALS IN NORTHERN IRELAND by BRIAN HARVEY, M.A., LL.B., Solicitor Senior Lecturer in Law, Queen's University, Belfast. Introduction In .he course of his introductory remarks to a lecture on Law Reform given by Sir Leslie Scarman at Queen's University, Belfast, in 1970, the learned judge quite rightly drew his audience's attention to the enormous achievements in this field of the nineteenth century. By comparison, he suggested, law reform in the twentieth century in England has been relatively unimpressive, with the significant exception of the "Birkenhead" legislation (primarily the Law of Property Acts 1922-1925, the Settled Land Act 1925 and the Trustee and Administration of Estates Acts 1925). Certainly if one surveys the progress made in the reform of the land law in the nineteenth century it is difficult to decide which legislative measure has had the most far-reaching consequences. The Settled Land Acts 1882-90 effectively freed huge tracts of land from the shackles of the strict settle ment so dear to the Victorian middle and upper classes. The Conveyancing Acts of 1881 and 1882 supplied for the first time the detailed machinery to enable conveyances to be brief and reasonably comprehensible, the Solicitors' Remuneration Act 1881 at the same time providing by way of en couragement that fees should be based on the commission basis rather than on the length of the document. On top of all this the Land Transfer Act, 1897, by making registration of title com pulsory in certain districts, put teeth into the title registration system already the subject of legis lation in 1862 and 1875. The 1862 Act was pre ceded by a preamble which precisely defines the aims of a successful conveyancing system: — "Whereas it is expedient to give certainty . to the title to Real Estates, and to facilitate the proof thereof, and also to render the dealing with land more simple and econom ical, be it enacted that, etc." Over a hundred years later the recipe remains the same despite the giant strides taken by the nineteenth century reformers.