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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.
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
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