The Gazette 1978

OCTOBER 1978

GAZETTE

17.1 Regular meetings of the Committee have been held during the year. In May 1978 Mr. Rory O'Donnell succeeded Mr. W. A. Osborne as Chairman of the Committee. As was said at the particular Committee meeting, tribute must be paid to Mr. Osborne for his sterling work as Chairman since the Committee was established. 17.2 Requisitions on Title: Despite its best endeavours, it was not possible for the Committee to come up with a new standard set of requisitions prior to the year-end. After numerous delays and difficulties, the matter is now well in hand and it is hoped to have the new edition available in the very near future. 17.3 Sale of Flats: Hopes that the specimen set of documents referred to in last year's report would enable progress to be made were found to be unreal. No real progress could be made until the two new Landlord and Tenant Acts became law and conclusions on the best approach have now been reached. It is a complicated task and it will take some time before it can be completed. 17.4 Construction Industry Federation: A sub-committee are discussing with the Federation the issue of-agreed explanatory material on the National Housebuilding Guarantee Scheme and the proposed agreed form of Building Agreement. 17.5 Stamp Duty on New Houses: Because of difficulties members found in the methods and standards applied by the Revenue Commissioners Stamps Branch it was necessary to have several meetings with the Revenue Commissioners. Two notices were issued to the profession. The first dealt with the revised stage of construction which the Revenue Commissioners are now insisting upon in non-exempt new houses (bona fide roof level) and the other related to the yardstick being applied by the Revenue Commissioners to the values being put on building sites. 17.6 Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors: The Chartered Surveyors being involved in the management of flat developments have made certain very helpful sugges- tions regarding the proposed specimen flat scheme. Meetings took place during the year on matters of mutual interest and certain of these are the subject of continuing discussion on a sub-committee basis. The principal items on which mutual problems arise are in relation to matters in rack-rent leases, the main ones being rent reviews, insurance and service charges. 17.7 New Houses — Specimen Architect's Certificate: A specimen Architect's Certificate had been settled by the Committee and agreed with the working party of the Institute of Architects. Due to the reluctance of the Institute to approve the form, further discussions were necessary and an acceptable revised form has been agreed and is to be put before the Council of the Institute for approval. When approved the text of the Certificate will be circulated both to the architects and to members. 17.8 Land Registry and Registry of Deeds: Regular contact has been maintained over the year with offices of the Land Registry. The contact has been most useful in speeding up the work of the Land Registry and the Committee would like to express its appreciation to the staff concerned. It is happy to record that the situation in the Land Registry shows a significant improvement by comparison with last year. Representations have been made to the Minister for Justice regarding the unsatisfactory situation in the Registry of Deeds and hopefully remedial action will be taken. 17.9 Landlord and Tenant Legislation: A significant amount of the Committee's time during the year, in conjunction with that of the Parliamentary Committee, was devoted to an examination of the Bills and to discussions with officers of the Department of Justice thereon. As required, the members were alerted to pending developments. 17.10 C.R.V.s: The Committee kept the situation under review during the year. At the close of the year the recent changes in Government policy in relation to C.R.V.S were being examined by the Committee with a view to eliminating difficulties for members. The recent changes have resulted in two new forms of C.R.V.s being issued by the Department which would not exempt the purchaser of a house or flat from stamp duty. There is no note on the face of these to indicate which C.R.V. would exempt a Purchase Deed from stamp duty and which would not. The Department's method of distinguishing the types of certificates was by using different coloured paper. Since most C.R.V.s relate to more than one house, solicitors will be receiving only photocopies with obvious difficulty. A notice to draw the attention of members to the problems has been circulated and attempts are also being made to convince the Department of the Environment to put a clear note on the C .R.V.s detailing its effect from the point of view of stamp duty. It has not been the universal practice of solicitors to insist upon seeing C.R.V.S before contract 169

CONVEYANCING COMMITTEE

j / R o r y O'Donndl

Chairman

Eric Brunker John F. Buckley Maurice Curran P. Fagan Ernest Farrell John Bore-Grimes John Maher Patrick C. Moore Frank Murphy Brian Russell J. Sweeney