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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
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