| 1 Red Tape | 2 Clogging the Works | 3 Dissolution of the Land Commission |
| 4 Registration of Deeds and Registration of Title | 5 Pyramid Titles | 6 Ground Rents Acts |
| 7 Succession to Land in Ireland |
These regulations existed side by side with government programmes to induce foreign companies to set up business in Ireland! Not to worry, the Industrial Development Authority and your solicitor will guide you safely through the minefield of regulation.
The regulations are still in place, modified by European Law, and are now supervised by the Department of Agriculture (Land Commission Section).
The arrival of the English, involving owners living at a distance from the land owned, brought the question out from the local community into a wider arena. A grant of land in freehold became universally a matter of writing. As a conveyance was a private contract between two parties, the matter was fraught with doubt. How could a purchaser be sure that the bundle of title deeds being produced to him by a vendor was authentic? How could he be sure that the plot of land being purchased had not already been conveyed to somebody else? The solution is to set up some form of registration system to make dealings in land, or the ownership itself, public.
The simplest form of registration is undoubtedly that of Registration of Deeds. Such a system was set up in 1707. This related to grants of land exceeding 21 years. An index of grantors is kept, which is the only means of searching the records.
Land purchased by tenants under the Land Purchase Acts was required to be registered under the Local Registration of Title Act, 1891. The Registers of Title kept under this Act show details of the tenure, owner and incumbrances of each parcel registered. Encompassing all the (rural) land bought under the Land Purchase Acts, it allowed voluntary registration of other land. The Registration of Title Act, 1964, envisages the extension of Registration of Title by empowering the government to prescribe areas in which registration is compulsory on completion of a conveyance on sale of land. Because of the difficulty of coping with the booming number of registrations since the 1960s, this has not yet been extended beyond the three areas originally prescribed,- counties Meath, Laois and Carlow.
The the Land Purchase Acts removed these pyramids of title from agricultural land, but they remain in respect of many urban titles. This often leads to difficulty in the buying and selling of property. Sales often involve several layers of the pyramid and the owners of some layers are often untraceable. The Statutes of Limitations, in their current form, do not help, since a lessee cannot bar the title of his lessor, as long as the term of years has not expired.
A number of Acts were passed, principally The Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) (No. 2) Act, 1978, which give such tenants, (as defined in the Acts), a right to purchase the freehold and all intermediate interests. The purchase can be completed even where the owners of some interests in the pyramid are not known. For dwelllinghouses, the purchase can be effected by a Vesting Certificate, issued by the Land Registry.
These Acts have eliminated pyramid titles in many parcels. Ideas for abolishing the remaining Ground Rents have included a proposal for legislation which would automatically convert such tenancy interests into the fee simple, subject to a charge representing the capitalised value of the rent.
Property held in joint tenancy passes, on the death of a joint tenant, to the remaining joint tenants. Property held as tenant in common passes to the spouse and next of kin of the deceased. Where some of the next of kin by entering into possession bar the remaining next of kin, they acquire as joint tenants.