Joanna Tuffy (Labour)

I welcome the Bill, which is a good initiative. I have worked as a conveyancer, which was my main job while a solicitor, and I never encountered a fee tail or lease for life renewable forever. Despite studying them at length in Professor Wiley's book at college, I did not fully understand what they were.

Working with the Law Reform Commission and introducing this type of legislation is a good initiative. I also agree with Senator Jim Walsh's point that the commission's reports are generally advisory. They are to be taken on board and we can use the commission's expertise, but other aspects need to be examined. I made this point in respect of the recently publicised report on sexual offences, as I did not agree with much in that report. Often, the reports are made by professionals, but they do not receive the input of other people in society who have points of view that should be taken on board in terms of legislation. In legislation of this type, that requirement is lessened because the area of land law is specialised and can be complicated. As such, this was the ideal project for the Department to work with the Law Reform Commission.

I will not go into the specifics of the Bill, as they are matters for Committee Stage and I do not know whether I will table amendments. The general purpose of the Bill is welcome. There is a need to reform our land law, particularly the requirement to have as much land registered as possible. This would be one way through which to speed up and simplify the process of conveyancing.

When land is registered, it enables one to determine whether there are any problems with titles and to ensure the matter is dealt with as well as possible, as guaranteed by the Land Registry. When land is unregistered, one is not fully sure. Each time a conveyancer or solicitor deals with the land, the title must be checked and one cannot be sure that a problem has not been missed along the way that could subsequently arise. The more land that is registered, the surer one can feel about one's title, searches will become more straightforward and conveyancing should become cheaper, as solicitor's fees should be lessened. Whether this will be the case is another question.

Other important initiatives will include converting maps to on-line digital formats. Recently, I went to the Land Registry to try to establish the ownership of a number of properties registered therein, but I could not identify the plan numbers in several cases because they had deteriorated over time. I will probably return to the Land Registry. I was surprised, as I had not realised that I would have such a problem. This issue must be addressed, including going through as much of the process on-line as possible and the computerisation of maps to allow searches through them and folios.

On the question of how to have more properties registered in the Land Registry, one method to achieve such was the compulsory registration of land in certain counties. Once those particular counties received this designation, if land therein was exchanged, the next registration needed to be registered in the Land Registry. It has taken a long time for us to go anywhere with that system. In recent legislation, the Minister designated three more counties for compulsory registrations. I agree with Senator Jim Walsh that such actions will not get us anywhere. I am not familiar with the statistics but feel that most land registered in the Land Registry was, as the Minister said, as a result of compulsory registration under the Land Purchase Acts, or was registered by county councils and developers of housing estates.

We need to examine how to register the maximum amount of land in the Land Registry. Is it possible for the Land Registry to register land which is not owned by county councils or developers and is not in counties designated for compulsory registration or about to change hands? Could a project be initiated to register an unregistered part of Dublin, irrespective of whether it changes hands? It is something we should consider if we are serious about the project. Can the Minister, either in his reply or on Committee Stage, give any statistics as to where is the bulk of the 15% of unregistered land? That should be the next step in drafting the legislation.

There are many other issues in which the State needs to intervene to reform the system. For example, ground rents are a nettle that must be grasped, because they require attention in many areas. One is the fact that many people with leases on houses may not realise there is very little time left on the lease. A bank or financial institution does not consider a lease of less than 70 years to be good title. Many leases around the country are approaching that 70-year limit, but nothing is being done about it. I need to carry out more research but I believe South Dublin County Council transferred the ownership of its council houses on long leases to their former tenants, many of whom are in the category to which I referred. This will cause a problem when those owners sell their property or pass it on to relatives, or when people buy such a property without being aware of the situation. It might not be an immediate problem but could be so in the future, and possibly the not too distant future.

Senator Walsh mentioned joint ownership. When county councils sold properties to its married tenants it was very often to the husband, in accordance with normal practice. People's attitudes have now changed and many of those people are trying to put the house jointly in the names of the husband and wife, for various reasons which reflect the way people now think about house ownership but also to make it easier to pass the property on to relatives. It is much easier on a bereaved spouse if a house is registered in joint names because there is then no need to acquire probate to do so. Under present law, councils have to give their permission for the transfer of a property from the sole name of one spouse, usually the husband, into the joint ownership of the husband and wife, even though they both actually own the house. That is totally unnecessary and, if we want to encourage people to own properties jointly, that law should be repealed.

I welcome the proposals for mortgages to be a charge on a property, whether the property is registered or unregistered. I always thought it strange that a mortgage was registered as a charge on the property in the Land Registry but if it was unregistered the bank or financial institution effectively owned it while it was mortgaged. Can the Minister of State say, either now or on Committee Stage, if he has checked with the Attorney General whether the law which takes away the unilateral right to sever a joint tenancy is constitutional?

Senator Mansergh is present. I too have a degree in history and am very interested in the subject. The system of unregistered title and all the different documents showing conveyances, assignments, etc., provided a little bit of history to anybody who read it, and certainly more so than does a Land Registry transfer. Many of the documents look very nice, have lovely writing and contain nice language, even though it is archaic. It is important to preserve that heritage and I would be interested to learn if any steps are being taken to do so.