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(1.) The Land Commission shall prepare the vesting order, or if they see fit to dispense therewith, shall fiat the agreement for the purchase of the holding, subject to such conditions, exceptions, and modifications as they think necessary; and on the advance being paid into the High Court, such fiat shall have effect as if it were a vesting order made by the Commission in relation to the holding purchased, and the provisions of this Act referring to vesting orders shall apply and be constructed accordingly.
(2.) The Land Commission shall, immediately after the vesting order or fiat, prepare and transmit to the registering authority under the Local Registration of Title (Ireland) Act, 1891, the prescribed particulars as to the holding, in order that the title of the purchaser to the ownership of the fee simple of the holding may be registered pursuant to that Act.
(3.) Section thirty-four of the said Act (which relates to the correction and rectification of the register) shall extend to a vesting order or fiat as if it were the register.
(4.) An agreement for purchase, a vesting order, or fiat, shall not operate to convert the interest of the purchaser into real estate.
§ LORD CASTLETOWNsaid the clause as it stood was of very little use. Apparently the solicitor of the seller would have very little to do with the sale. The experience which they had had during the last 10 years of the sales of land showed that it was very important that the solicitor of the seller should safeguard, not only the interest of the seller in the land, but the interest of those to whom the land was sold. The clause, he believed, accentuated the existing danger, while it did not move from the landlord any of the expense. The landlord would still have to pay the 62 Stamp Duties, the printing expenses, and the expenses of maps, and the solicitor of the seller was the only person whose interest it was to look to the boundaries and see that they were properly marked. It was an absolutely technical question, and he asked the noble and learned Lord to look into it carefully. Unless some change was made, they would find very grave dangers arising in the future. That was not alone his opinion; it was the opinion of experts in sales. ["Hear, hear!"] He hoped the clause would be amended so as to obviate all danger.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELANDadmitted the necessity of dealing with this important matter with extreme caution. A great deal had been said in regard to delay, but on investigation it had been found over and over again that the delay was due to the fact—without making any charge against him—that the solicitor had not been so active as he might have been in regard to the vesting order. He had no doubt that when they transferred to the Land Commission the primary duty of preparing the vesting order every reasonable check would be applied to see that the vesting order would stand the test of examination. He would look into the matter before the Report stage. He thought the clause would be found to be a workable one, and one which might somewhat hasten matters, avoid delay, and which would not lead to any real risk.
§ LORD CASTLETOWNsaid he was obliged to the noble and learned Lord, and he hoped that he would really look into the matter before Report. He wished to call special attention to Subsection 4, which seemed a very harmless one, but the effect of which would be that in any case where a tenant had purchased and become a fee simple owner of his holding, the estate would pass as personal estate. The result would be that at the end of 49 years the fee simple owner would be able to divide his holding into as many portions as he pleased, and this would lead to enormous sub-division. This arrangement had been found to work very badly on the Continent, and in Austria and Germany at present they were trying to revert to the arrangement which existed now in this country. He would ask the noble 63 and learned Lord if possible to excise the sub-section.
§ Clause as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Clause 32,—