Lords Sitting of 24 February 1862

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Law of Property Amendment; Real Property (Title of Purchasers).
LAW OF PROPERTY AMENDMENT BILL. REAL PROPERTY (TITLE OF PURCHASERS) BILL.

  BILLS PRESENTED. FIRST READING.
  LORD ST. LEONARDSsaid, he rose to lay on their Lordships' table two Bills having relation to real Estate. The first was a Bill further to amend the Law of Real Property. The first provision of the Bill was one which had already upon three occasions received their Lordships' support, but had not met with favour in the other House of Parliament: it was to prevent a purchaser or mortgagee from being affected by what is termed implied or constructive notice, and he still hoped that it would from its merits receive the sanction of both Houses. Another purpose of the Bill was a provision by which, when a sequestration issued under the Bill of his noble and learned Friend of last Session (the Bankruptcy Act) against a beneficed clergyman, all previous sequestrations shall cease to have effect, and all the profits of the benefice, beyond necessary expenses and provision for a curate or incumbent, should be divided rateably among the creditors. There were also provisions to render it unnecessary, where judgments were registered in the Common Pleas, to register them in the local Courts of Registry. A further clause provided for the more perfect entry in the Common Pleas of writs. The Bill contained various other provisions, to which it was not necessary to call their Lordships' attention. His second measure was a Bill for further Limitation of Actions and Suits relating to Real Property in support of the Title of Purchasers, which he proposed, with their Lordships' consent, should be read a second time, and then referred to the Select Committee which was to consider the other Bills that had been introduced on the subject of titles to land. At present a purchaser must wait forty years before he could be sure of having a good title, because there might be some outstanding claim which nobody had ever heard of, or which had been quite forgotten, which might be brought against the title. His
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  proposal was, that possession for a period of twenty years should confer on a purchaser a good title, and that in the case of disabilities five years should be allowed after the disability ceased for the claimant to make his legal claim. Thirty years, however, was the utmost allowance for disabilities—after that period the claimant's right was extinguished, whatever might have been his disability or disabilities, or whatever the disabilities of successive claimants. During the whole of the twenty years which was to give a purchaser a good title, an opportunity would be afforded to reversioners or on behalf of issue to obtain a declaration of right. This, if adopted, would enable Parliament, as he proposed by the Bill, to limit the obligation of a vendor to produce a title of forty years, instead, as now, of sixty years, which would be an immense saving to owners of property.
  Bills presented; and read 1a.
  House adjourned at a quarter past Five o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.