§ SIR HENRY FOWLER (Wolverhampton, E.)To ask Mr. Attorney-General whether, under the Land Transfer Rules, 1903, the registrar is not given practically unlimited discretion to issue certificates of absolute title conferring an immediate Government guarantee of validity in cases where a purchaser has been registered with a possessory title for a period of six years, and whether any fund has been set aside from the receipts of the Land Registry for providing an indemnity; and, if not, or if the same is insufficient, whether the whole indemnity or the deficiency, as the case may be, is payable out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom; and whether such rules have been made with the advice and assistance of the Rule Committee.
(Answered by Sir Robert Finlay.) The thirty-sixth of the general rules, under the Land Transfer Act, made on the 18th December last, provides that on application for registration with an absolute title the examination of the title may be modified in such manner as the registrar may think fit, in cases in which the land has been registered with a possessory or qualified title for six years prior to the date of application. I am informed that since the Act came into force about £10,000 a year has been set aside from
§ and other Public Offices on the 31st day of March 1904, specifying whether held in England or Ireland (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 160, of Session 1903):—
§ the receipts of the Land Registry towards the insurance fund, and that it now amounts to £48,449. The 21st Section of the Land Transfer Act, 1897, provides that any deficiency shall be paid out of the Consolidated Fund, but that any sum so paid shall be repaid out of money subsequently standing to the credit of the insurance fund. The rules were made by the Lord Chancellor, and in accordance with Sub-section 2 of Section 22 of the Act of 1897.