LORD BROUGHAMmoved the First Reading of a Bill to facilitate the Conveyance of Property, which he should move be read a first time now, and a second time shortly after the holidays; a Bill which he now introduced in redemption of a pledge he had given to extend the wholesome and salutary provisions of two Acts of last Session, for simplifying the conveyance and sale of landed property and the granting of leases. Those measures had operated to the comfort of those who were really interested, but to the discomfort of certain parties who practised in conveyancing. He did not, however, much care for those worthy counsel and attorneys, but rather regarded their clients, whose time and money had both been saved by the Acts in question. His present Bill extended the former principles to all mortgages, settlements, sales, and exchanges, and to the forms of leases. One of the greatest evils to which landowners in this country were subjected was the expense of conveyancing, and the consequent uncertainty of title. A body of evidence had been given before the Committee on Burdens on Land, which was quite frightful in this respect, as showing the difference between the number of years' purchase in this and other countries, in consequence of the expense that attended the conveyance of real property here. The expense of the conveyance of an acre was as great as that of a large estate. He there found that the price of land in countries 146 where the expense of conveyancing was little or nothing—he could himself speak to France, and the witnesses spoke to Germany and other countries—was thirty-five years' purchase in one country, thirty-six years' in another, thirty-eight in another, and in one country no less than forty-eight or fifty years' purchase. He had been asked, why not make the Act compulsory? There was a reluctance in the profession to use these forms, because the Acts were not compulsory. They could not be compulsory. If a man chose to convey in a long rigmarole deed, subject to great expense and error, you had no means of making him do otherwise; but he had inserted in the Bill that which, he hoped, would have a considerable effect; viz., a provision, that in taxing costs the Master should take the circumstances into consideration, and should not allow the long form if he was clearly of opinion that the short form might be made use of.
LORD CAMPBELLconcurred in the Bill. Three years ago he had himself introduced a measure of the kind. He regretted, however, that his noble and learned Friend should have expressed an opinion that the profession were hostile to it; for he felt sure that they would be ready to adopt any improvement; and when these forms were promulgated by authority, there was no doubt of their being adopted.
LORD BROUGHAMexplained: He did not mean that the profession as a body objected to these forms, but only alluded to certain practitioners of both branches of the profession.
§ LORD BEAUMONTcould not refrain from congratulating those interested in real property, that this question had at last been taken up by one of the ability of his noble and learned Friend. Any one who had attended to the evidence before the Burdens upon Land Committee, must know that the transfer of property was not only impeded by the present system, but that a great deal of capital which would be otherwise invested in the cultivation of land was prevented from being employed in that way, in consequence of the difficulty of raising money on mortgage, and in other transactions.
§ Bill read 1a.