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Condition of Country Courthouses
THE following resolution was passed, and
the
Secretary was directed to send a copy thereof to
the appropriate Government departments.
" That in the opinion of the Council of the
Incorporated Law Society of Ireland the appro
priate Ministers of State should be asked to intro
duce legislation to provide that:—
(a)
The provision and maintenance of Court
houses should be the duty of the Com
missioners of Public Works, and be a
national charge under the direction of the
Department of Justice.
(b)
That the present District Court areas should
be revised, and enlarged with a view
to
reducing the number of Courthouses re
quired in local areas."
Petrol for Solicitors
THE Secretary reported that he had received a letter
from the Department of Industry and Commerce
stating that additional allowances of petrol would
be granted to solicitors following representations
made by the Society.
A note of the additional
allowances is printed below.
Less than 10 H.P.
... 30 gallons per month
(including basic)
io H.P. and less than
... 36
„
„
„
16 H.P.
16 H.P. and upwards ... 50
„
„
„
Petrol licences for the increased allowances will
be issued to solicitors on application to the Depart
ment of Industry and Commerce, Petrol Section,
Griffith Barracks, Dublin, giving the make, reg
istration number and horsepower of the car.
STAMP DUTY ON LEASES
IN the case of John Frederick O'Sullivan appellant,
Revenue
Commissioners
respondents
(not yet
reported), Mr. Justice Martin Maguire held that the
increased stamp duty of 5 per cent, for nationals and
25 per cent, for non-nationals imposed by Section
13 of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1947, does not apply
to property which is disposed of by means of a lease
at a rent and also a fine.
Property so leased will be
subject to a duty of only i per cent, (or io/-%
in cases where the appropriate certificate is given),
on the fine in addition to the stamp duty on the
rent, whether or not the lessee is a citizen of Ireland.
PARTICULARS DELIVERED
REPRESENTATIONS were received from the Dublin
Solicitors' Bar Association
that the
practice of
vendors' solicitors of handing over to the purchasers'
solicitors the P.D. form and asking them to have
the stamp impressed should be discontinued.
It
was pointed out, that whereas obtaining the P.D.
stamp was formerly a simple operation, it has now
become more complicated by reason of the require
ments of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1947, and it was
suggested by the Bar Association that the vendor's
solicitor should himself have the P.D. stamp im
pressed before handing over the deed to the pur
chaser's solicitor.
In the view of the Council of the Society it is not
part of the duty of the purchaser's solicitor to have
this
stamp
impressed. The vendor's
solicitor
receives payment for it and he is not entitled, as of
right, to ask the purchaser's solicitor to act as his
unpaid agent in this matter.
It is open to individual
solicitors to make their own arrangements about
the P.D. stamp on grounds of convenience, but
a solicitor acting for a purchaser who requires the
stamp to be impressed before the deed is handed
over cannot be said to be acting either illegally or
discourteously. As this matter was raised by the
Dublin Bar Association, and not by any of the
provincial associations, the above note is to be taken
as applicable only to practice in the city of Dublin.
PROFESSIONAL ITEMS
House-agents' commission
THERE have been two decided cases in England
recently on the much litigated question of the
interpretation of agency contracts between vendors
of property and house-agents, giving rise to claims
for commission against the owners of property.
It was laid down in Luxor (Eastbourne) Ltd.
v.
Cooper (1941 A.C. 108) and Jones
v.
Lowe (61
T.L.R. 53) that in such agency contracts the word
" purchaser " bears a more restricted meaning than
that usually assigned to it. A contract drawn by
an agent binding the owner of property to pay a
commission " in the event of my introducing a
purchaser" was held to mean a purchaser who
actually signed a binding contract, and where the
negotiations went off owing to the action of the
vendor, although the purchaser was willing
to
proceed at the stipulated price, no commission was
payable.
In the recent case of Bennett and Partners
v.
Millett (1948 2 All. E.R. 929) a different form of
words was used.
The house-agents wrote to the
defendant: " We confirm that in the event of our
introducing a purchaser who is able and willing
to complete the transaction our commission will be
in accordance with the recognised scale," and the
Court held that this letter constituted the agency
contract. The agents
introduced a prospective
purchaser at the stipulated price who at all times was