Guidelines to Land Registration in Ireland

Presented by Proinnsias Ó Cillín BL, BSc (IT), MSc, Land Registration Consultant

1. Changing Times

2. Popular Queries

3. Avoiding Queries

4. Fundamental Mistakes

5. The NCT Attitude

6. Solicitors' Exposure

7. Required Certification of Title

8. Qualified Title

9. Conversion of Title

10. Adverse Possession

11. Documentary First Registration

12. More Changes Coming

12. More Changes Coming

First Registration

The present procedures for First Registration have changed very little since the 19th Century.  They are unsuitable to the Information Age.  Solicitors should expect, (or perhaps demand), change to a more dynamic system, where:

  • Solicitors will certify documentary titles as Absolute or Qualified, and
  • Solicitors will certify the title of persons in possession without documentary title as Possessory Title, and
  • Registration will be instant and without query, except for technical matters such as clarification of description and removal of ambiguity in applications, and
  • The Law will provide 6 years for lodgement of contradictory claims, and 
  • If not contested within 6 years Qualified and Possessory Titles will be converted to Absolute.

Right of Person in Occupation

The Globalisation of the Economy, and, with it, the Land Market, demands that a purchaser from a registered owner will be protected against unforeseeable challenges to his title.

Our present law states that a purchaser takes subject to "the rights of every person in actual occupation of the land or in receipt of the rents and profits thereof, save where, upon enquiry made of such person, the rights are not disclosed" (s. 72(1)(j), Registration of Title Act 1964).

A Bill at present before the Oireachtas will (inter alia) change this (The Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill 2006, s. 21).  If passed, a purchaser will apparently take free from the rights of a person in actual occupation, unless he has registered his right or a caution or inhibition to protect his right.

 

Proinnsias Ó Cillín

Land Registration Forum

Societal Information System (project 1997 - 1999)

Solicitors: Assistance with Land Registry applications: E-mail me at killeens@indigo.ie
History of Land Registration in Ireland

History of Land Tenure in Ireland

Demonstration: Land Registration system of the Future?

A Model for Land Registration in the Information Age

Thesis by Proinnsias Ó Cillín (€35):