§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Chancellor.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that its object was to place the sales of reversions and ordinary sales of land in possession upon an equal footing. Under the existing law a purchaser of a reversion must prove that he has given adequate value for the property—a proof which was not required in the case of the sale of property in possession. In one instance, where the purchaser had evidently acted in the most upright and fair manner, the Judges had felt bound by the authorities to reverse the decision of the Master of the Rolls holding the sale in question good. All that the Bill now before the House proposed to do was to enact that the pur- 528 chase of a reversion should not be set aside merely upon the ground of the inadequacy of the price paid, leaving the law as it at present stood in cases of fraud, overreaching, or gross inadequacy from which fraud may be presumed. He thought he need say no more to induce their Lordships to read the Bill a second time.
§ Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.