The Gazette 1967/71

the law and practice relating to the Registration of Title to land in Northern Ireland, and "the Lowry Report" duly appeared in 1967 (Cmd. 512). This is a work running to some 150 para graphs containing an erudite critique of the for mer law relating to registered land and making recommendations as to reform of the law con tained in the Local Registration of Title (Ireland) Act 1891. These have now been implemented in the Land Registration Act (Northern Ireland) 1970. This Act lies outside the scope of this short article, but it is significant that in recommending reform of land registration the Lowry Report specifically rejected the view of the Incorporated Law Society that any such reform should be pre ceded by a full review of the substantive land law (see paras. 113 - 115) and one of the reasons is that no such review preceded the Republic's Regis tration of Title Act 1964, an Act extensively dis cussed in the Report. The Report had no hes itation, however, in dubbing the existing land law "in many respects archaic and unsuited to modern conditions" (para. 115) and went on to consider in detail how the prevalent "pyramids of interest" caused by the grants of fee farm and derivative interests could be fitted in to a simplified system of titles registration. The Report also recom mended that a "survey" of the substantive law should be made under the aegis of the Director of Law Reform. The Committee stated that it had considered "in principle" the Birkenhead Scheme, and commented:— "The basic principles of the scheme seem to us to be as sound for Northern Ireland as they appear to have been for England, namely (i) that the legal estates capable of subsisting in land (i.e. the "commodities" that are normally bought and sold in the land market) should be reduced to the essential minimum — the fee simple absolute in possession (including the fee simple subject to a perpetual rent) and the term of years absolute; and (ii) that there should be a "curtain" between those estates and the various "family" interests which are not normally dealt with in the market and can be given their full effect out of the pro ceeds of sale of the estates." The Committee also made specific criticisms of the law relating to settled land, co-ownership of land and length of title (paras. 141-2).

The Land Law Working Party The Working Party, consisting of Professor L. A. Sheridan (Chairman) the author and two other colleagues from the Law Faculty at Queen's Uni versity, Belfast, was set up in November 1967 as a result of an agreement with the Director of Law Reform. Needless to say even a modest "survey" of the law in this most complex of areas would have been a time-consuming task, but when it was decided that the only way in which concrete pro posals could really be put to the test would be to draft the necessary legislation, the scope of the operation took on altogether a different degree of magnitude. Merely to record that over the three years we held over 200 meetings many of them lengthy, does little to indicate the labour involved in writing a report of some 208 pages plus two draft bills comprising a total of 297 clauses and six schedules. The Report was finally published in January 1971, and is obtainable under the title "Survey of Nortthern Ireland Land Law" from H.M.S.O., 80 Chichester Street, Belfast (Price £2). The way the Working Party operated was to divide up the whole of the substantive law amongst the individual members who were then charged to make a full survey of the existing law and its faults and then produce draft legislation, accom panied by explanatory commentaries, which when fully discussed and amended would then serve as the basis for our "working papers" (i.e. the material circulated to a large number of bodies and individuals for their critical comments). The Birkenhead legislation, particularly the Law of Property Act 1925, was taken as a rough guide, but the opportunity was taken throughout the exercise of modernising and simplifying the Birkenhead code which after 45 years was not surprisingly showing signs of obsolesence. We were fortunate in obtaining the co-operation of numer ous bodies and individuals, including the Incorpor ated Law Society, the Law Commission (England), the Building Societies Association, the President of the Lands Tribunal (N.I.) and the First Parlia mentary Draftsmen. Before outlining some of the reforms recom mended, it may be of interest to readers if a brief description is given of the reactions of some of the persons with whom we consulted are briefly described. On the general point of the way the 207