Land legislation to be modernised

A CHAPTER will close on Ireland’s Pride and Prejudice land laws when radical modernisation plans are unveiled next month.

Almost 160 antiquated pieces of legislation will be consigned to history under the ambitious plans to bring the statute books into the 21st century.

President of the Law Reform Commission, Ms Justice Catherine McGuinness, said: “The vast majority of land law is pre-1922 so it is not even within the lifetime of the State.”

Irish land law is notoriously complex and is further complicated by outdated regulations that reflect long-gone social conventions which included excluding women from owning land, restricting inheritance to the eldest son or preventing tenants from becoming permanent occupants.

“You have a sort of Pride and Prejudice situation where the estate was entailed [governed by a predetermined inheritance order] and none of the daughters could get it,” said Ms Justice McGuinness.

In modern terms, some of these laws can tie up land purchase, inheritance and transfer deals in time-consuming and costly legal wrangles and create huge uncertainty for buyers and descendants of the original owner.

Under the new plans, which will have to be approved by the Government before they can be enacted, it is envisaged there will be just two categories of land title and transactions will run more smoothly.

The change will be assisted by the ongoing computerisation of the Land Registry which is putting every scrap of land in the country onto a digital database complete with ownership details and significant features such as rights of way.

Law Reform Commissioner Patricia T Rickard said the process of buying and selling property (conveyancing) would become much more straightforward.

Updating land laws signals a new priority for the Law Reform Commission which is keen to tackle areas of law that can be changed swiftly with immediate benefits for ordinary citizens.

The commissioners, a group of legal and other experts who advise the Government, are working on scrapping the “ward of court” process which dates back to the 1800s and deals with people deemed unable to make decisions for themselves, and want to replace it with a more sympathetic “public guardianship” system.

They have also produced proposals for the special protection in law of elderly and vulnerable people.

Justice McGuinness said the importance of such protections was made clear by the recent nursing home scandals.

Yesterday the commission celebrated its 30th year in existence with a gala dinner in Farmleigh House attended by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Justice Minster Michael McDowell.