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work was undertaken, it should first be made
clear that the individual members of the Working
Party had only a limited experience of practical
conveyancing, although two members had had
some experience of conveyancing in England and
elsewhere
in
the Commonwealth
as well
as
locally. We thus regarded it as supremely im
portant that we should have the fullest discussions
with persons in day-to-day practice of convey
ancing, whether privately or in the capacity of a
building
society or government
legal adviser.
Accordingly we had a large number of sessions,
some more formal than others, and the comments
and criticisms which were made either of our
conceptual framework or (more commonly) of the
detailed working of a scheme as particularised in
our draft legislation were invaluable and often
resulted in major revision. One or two of those
consulted urged us to scrap the whole of the land
law and
substitute
some
simpler
alternative
method of holding land. Attractive though this
might seem at first glance, we soon came to the
conclusion that such a draconian solution would
be quite impractical and the most we could hope
to do would be to rewrite and consolidate the
existing statute law while at the same time elimin
ating "mystique, archaism, arbitrary hurdles and
mumbo-jumbo"
(see para. 6 of our Report).
Again the opinion was sometimes held that there
was no need for reform (though no one was able
to sustain this view under cross-examination!).
Perhaps the best answer to anyone still inclined
to this viewpoint would be to direct his attention
to the Fifth Schedule to the draft Property Bill
(Northern Ireland). There he will see listed for
repeal some 112 statutes, usually in whole. If the
average conveyancer is disturbed to learn that
there are such statutes in force as the Clandestine
Mortgages Act (Ireland) 1697, the Leasing Powers
Amendment Act for Religious Purposes in Ireland
1795 or more exotic, the Custom of England that
Land of Bastard without their reverts to Lord to
be observed in Ireland (22 Hen. 3
(1238)), to
name but three of the 112 listed, we hope that
he will be more reconciled to finding an intellig
ible code contained in a total of the 280 clauses
in the draft Property Bill. This bill, incidentally,
includes the general law of landlord and tenant
(Deasy's Act being amongst the proposed repeals)
and the law of wills. We deal separately with the
problem of fee farm and other periodic rents in
a separate draft bill, the Periodic Rents Bill.
The Main Reforms Proposed
The principles to which we had regard as far
as either possible or expedient were: —
(a) Simplification of Conveyancing,
(b) Assimilation of the law of Northern Ireland to
that of England (one good reason for this
being the desirability of utilisation of the ex
cellent precedent books published in England),
(c) Assimilation of the law relating to unregistered
land to that relating to registered land.
(d) Assimilation of land law to that governing
other types of property,
(e) Catering for the needs of person dealing with
land and any special needs in Northern Ire
land,
(f) Settling doubts as to existing law,
(g) Removal of injustices, and
(h) Easy accessability of the law (see Para. 6).
Before discussing briefly some of the detailed
proposals it should be emphasised that we exer
cised the maximum possible care to create a com
plete "code" whose provisions interlocked satis
factorily. A serious study of the proposals could
only be made by a careful perusal of the draft
bills themselves, and what follows is only a highly
selective bird's-eye view. Furthermore, we not
unexpectedly
encountered great difficulties
in
drafting some of the provisions dealing with the
more obscure corners of land law — e.g. the con
version of perpetually renewable freehold leases
into terms of years — rarely met in practice, no
doubt, but an essential component in a complete
code. Not infrequently the Working Party would
devote two or three meetings to the drafting and
wider implications of a single sub-clause, and
would still be loathe to undertake that the whole
is free from errors, inconsistencies or omissions.
Detailed Proposals
(1)
Reducation in Number of Legal Estates
We followed the Law of Property Act 1925
in the proposal to reduce the number of legal
estates to two, viz. an estate in fee simple absolute
in possession and a term of years (sic). Thus
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