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16 1964

REGISTRATION OF TITLE ACT, 1964

PART V

Miscellaneous Provisions

Avoidance of certain stipulations in contracts for sale or charge of registered land.

115. —Every stipulation in a contract for the sale or charge of registered land or for the transfer of a registered charge whereby the purchaser or intending chargeant or the intending transferee (as the case may be) is precluded from making requisitions in relation to burdens generally or any particular burden which, by virtue of section 72, may affect the land shall be void.

Exemption of land from registration in Registry of Deeds.

116. —(1) The registration under this Act of the ownership of any estate or interest in land shall, on and after the date of registration, exempt that estate or interest from the provisions of the enactments relating to the Registry of Deeds; and a deed or other document relating to that estate or interest and executed or coming into operation on or after that date shall not, unless it also relates to unregistered land, require to be registered in the Registry of Deeds. The registration of such ownership shall not, however, have the effect of exempting from registration in the Registry of Deeds any deed or document relating to the title to any other estate or interest in the land other than a deed or document creating such estate or interest.

(2) Where the ownership of any estate or interest in land is registered under this Act a memorial of the registration, in the prescribed form, shall be given to the Registrar of Deeds, who shall forthwith register the memorial in the Registry of Deeds without any fee or duty being charged for so doing.

(3) When the registration in the Registry of Deeds of any deed or other document within a certain period or otherwise is required by any enactment, registration of the title under such deed or other document (within the same period, where registration within a certain period is required) shall be a compliance with the provisions of that enactment.

Exemption from registration elsewhere of burdens registered under this Act.

117. —(1) Registration of a burden under this Act shall have the same effect as, and make unnecessary, registration of any deed or document relating to such burden, in the Registry of Deeds. In the case of a leasehold interest the ownership of which is not registered under this Act such exemption shall extend only to the lease itself and not to any other deed or document relating to the title to the leasehold interest.

(2) (a) Registration in the prescribed manner of a judgment, order, inquisition, recognizance or State bond as a burden under this Act shall have the same effect as and make unnecessary, for any purpose as regards the land, the registration thereof in the Registry of Judgments;

(b) No such judgment, order, inquisition, recognizance or bond shall, after the expiration of five years from the date of such registration, affect any registered land as to purchasers, mortgagees or creditors, unless and until it is re-registered in the prescribed manner under this Act within five years before the execution of the conveyance, settlement, mortgage, lease, or other instrument vesting or transferring the legal or equitable right to the estate or interest in or to any such purchaser or mortgagee for valuable consideration, or as to creditors within five years before the right of such creditor accrued, and so re-registered at the expiration of every succeeding five years.

Indemnity of registering authority.

118. —A registering authority shall not, nor shall any person acting under his authority or under any order or general rule made in pursuance of this Act, be liable to any action, suit or proceeding for or in respect of any act or matter bona fide done or omitted to be done in the exercise or supposed exercise of the powers of this Act, or any order or general rule made in pursuance of this Act.

Penalties for fraud.

119. —(1) If any person commits any of the following offences, that is to say—

(a) in the course of any proceedings before the Registrar or the court in pursuance of this Act, with intent to conceal the title or claim of any person, or to substantiate a false claim, suppresses, attempts to suppress, or is privy to the suppression of, any document or fact, or

(b) fraudulently procures, attempts to fraudulently procure, or is privy to the fraudulent procurement of, any entry, erasure or alteration in the register, or

(c) in any affidavit required or authorised to be made for any purpose under this Act, or under any order or general rules made in pursuance of this Act, wilfully makes a false statement in any material particular,

he shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and if convicted on indictment shall be liable to imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years, or to a fine not exceeding five hundred pounds.

(2) No proceeding or conviction for any offence declared by this Act to be a misdemeanour shall affect any remedy to which any person aggrieved by the offence may be entitled.

(3) Nothing in this Act shall entitle any person to refuse to make a complete discovery in any legal proceeding, or to answer any question or interrogatory in any civil proceeding; but no such discovery or answer shall be admissible in evidence against that person in any criminal proceeding under this Act.

Compensation for error, forgery or fraud in relation to registration.

120. —(1) This section applies to loss sustained by any person by reason of—

(a) the rectification by the court of any such error in registration as may be rectified under subsection (1) of section 32, or

(b) any error originating in the Land Registry (whether of misstatement, misdescription, omission or otherwise, and whether in a register or in a registry map) which occurs in registration and is not rectified under the said subsection (1), or

(c) any entry in or omission from a register or registry map caused or obtained by forgery or fraud, or

(d) any error in an official search carried out by a registering authority or any of his officers, or

(e) the inaccuracy of any office copy of or extract from a register or registry map, or of any office copy of or extract from any document or plan filed in the Land Registry.

(2) Where any person sustains loss to which this section applies, and the loss is not caused or substantially contributed to by the act, neglect or default of himself or his agent, that person and also any person deriving title from him shall be entitled to compensation for that loss in accordance with this section.

(3) In the case of rectification of an error by the court under subsection (1) of section 32, the costs and expenses incurred by the applicant in obtaining the rectification shall be deemed to be a loss to which this section applies.

(4) All compensation payable under this section shall be paid out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas.

(5) The following provisions shall apply to every claim for compensation under this section:

(a) the claim shall be made in the prescribed manner to the Registrar and notice thereof shall be given to the Minister for Finance;

(b) the Registrar shall determine the claim and such determination shall be final unless either the Minister for Finance or the claimant is dissatisfied with that determination, in which case either party may appeal to the court;

(c) no claim shall be entertained by the Registrar after the expiration of a period of six years from the time when the right to compensation accrued unless, on the expiration of such period the person entitled to claim was under disability, in which case the claim shall not be entertained after the expiration of two years from the termination of the disability, but the determination of the Registrar to refuse or allow a claim under this paragraph shall be subject to appeal to the court;

(d) for the purposes of paragraph (c), the right to compensation shall be deemed to have accrued—

(i) in regard to any estate or interest in possession, on the date of the registration which occasioned the loss in respect of which compensation is claimed, or

(ii) in regard to any estate or interest in remainder or reversion, on the date when such estate or interest would, but for such registration as aforesaid, have fallen into possession;

(e) the compensation shall include the costs incurred by the claimant in establishing his claim.

(6) Where compensation is paid under this section to any person—

(a) the compensation (other than costs) shall be applicable in discharge of any incumbrances affecting the estate or interest of that person in the land or charge in respect of which the compensation is payable;

(b) the Minister for Finance shall have the same right to recover the amount of such compensation from any person who caused or derived advantage from the loss as the person who suffered the loss would have had if the loss were an injury caused to him by the first mentioned person.

Inhibition in consequence of discovery of error.

121. —(1) Whenever it appears to the Registrar that an error which may be capable of rectification has been made in registration, the Registrar may enter in the register such inhibition against dealings with the land or the burden affected by such error as he thinks proper for the purpose of protecting the Central Fund against claims for compensation in respect of losses occasioned by registrations made after such error is discovered and before it is rectified.

(2) An inhibition entered in the register under this section shall not affect any registration actually pending in the central office when such inhibition is entered nor prevent the completion of such registration.

(3) Whenever the Registrar enters an inhibition under this section, he shall send notice of such inhibition and of the error because of which it was entered to all persons who appear from the register to be affected by such error and to such other persons (if any) as may be prescribed.

Owner of land with possessory title not a trustee under Statute of Limitations, 1957.

122. —(1) Where a person is registered as owner of land with a title which is or is deemed to be a possessory title, neither he nor any person claiming through him shall, by reason only of the registration, be, in respect of that land, a trustee for the purposes of the Statute of Limitations, 1957 .

(2) Subsection (1) is in substitution for paragraph (c) of subsection (2) of section 2 of the Statute of Limitations, 1957 , repealed by this Act.

Effect of words of transfer.

123. —(1) An instrument of transfer of freehold registered land without words of limitation, or any equivalent expression, shall pass the fee simple or other the whole interest which the transferor had power to transfer in the land unless a contrary intention appears in the instrument.

(2) An instrument of transfer of freehold registered land to a corporation sole by his corporate designation without the word “successors” shall pass to the corporation the fee simple or other the whole interest which the transferor had power to transfer in the land unless a contrary intention appears in the instrument.

(3) In an instrument of transfer of registered land a resulting use or trust for the transferor shall not be implied merely by reason that the property is not expressed to be transferred to the use or benefit of the transferee.

(4) This section applies only to instruments of transfer executed after the commencement of this Act.

Power of Peace Commissioners to take affidavits.

124. —An affidavit to be made or used in any proceedings before the Registrar may be sworn before a Peace Commissioner who shall have power to administer the oath for that purpose.

Registration of land below high-water mark.

125. —Where application is made for the registration of an owner of land and it appears to the Registrar that the land comprises foreshore, within the meaning of the Foreshore Act, 1933 , the Registrar shall send notice in writing thereof to the Minister for Transport and Power.

Power to make rules and orders.

126. —(1) The committee constituted by section 73 of the Courts of Justice Act, 1936 , shall continue to be styled the Registration of Title Rules Committee.

(2) The Registration of Title Rules Committee, with the concurrence of the Minister for Justice, may make general rules for carrying into effect the objects of this Act, and in particular, without limiting the foregoing power, in respect of all or any of the following matters:

(a) the conduct of the business in the central and local offices, and the powers and duties of the Registrar and local registrars, and of all officers and persons attached to the central office and the local offices;

(b) the relations between the central office and the local offices;

(c) the conduct of transfers and the publication of information relating to transfers;

(d) the making, keeping, and indexing of the registers and the authentication and preservation of documents relating to title;

(e) the procedure to be observed, the precautions to be taken, the notices to be given and the evidence to be adduced in all proceedings in connexion with registration, and the circumstances under which and the persons to whom reference is to be made in respect of the examination of any title to land proposed to be registered;

(f) the procedure to be adopted in connexion with registration on exchange of holdings;

(g) the form in which and conditions under which entries in the register are to be made and may be modified or cancelled; the order in which entries relating to the same land are to be made, and the correction of clerical errors in the registers or registry maps or in any document connected with registration;

(h) the form and contents of any instrument, certificate, memorial, affidavit or other document required or authorised to be used or given under or for the purposes of this Act;

(i) the conditions under which a new land certificate or certificate of charge may be given in place of a certificate lost, defaced or destroyed;

(j) the custody of any instruments from time to time coming into the hands of any officer of the Land Registry;

(k) the inspection of and making of copies of or extracts from any register or document in the custody of the Land Registry;

(l) the costs and fees to be charged by or allowed to solicitors or other persons in or incidental to or consequential on registration, or any other matter required to be done for the purpose of carrying this Act into execution, or otherwise in discharge of the duties imposed by or under this or any other Act on a registering authority, with power to require those costs and fees to be payable by commission, percentage, or otherwise;

(m) the taxation of costs and the persons by and to whom costs are to be taxed and paid;

(n) the entering into security for the costs of appeal under this Act; and

(o) any matter by this Act directed or authorised to be prescribed, or for which general rules are by this Act directed or authorised to be made.

(3) Provision shall be made by general rules for the registration, without cost to the parties interested, of all titles recorded under the Record of Title (Ireland) Act, 1865, and care shall be taken in such rules to protect any rights acquired in pursuance of such recording. Until registration, that Act shall apply thereto as if this Act had not been passed.

(4) (a) Every office under the control of the Registrar as such, or as Registrar of Deeds, shall be open to the public on such days and during such hours as the Minister for Justice may from time to time by order appoint.

(b) The Registry of Deeds Office (Ireland) Holidays Act, 1883, is hereby repealed.

(c) Notwithstanding section 2, this subsection shall come into operation on the passing of this Act.

Saving for bona vacantia.

127. —Nothing in this Act shall affect the right of the State to any property as bona vacantia.