PORTABLE PROPERTY IN LAND

Wellington Independent, Volume XVII, Issue 1787, 4 November 1862, Page 3

PORTABLE PROPERTY IN LAND

Under the above title, an article appears in the last published volume of " All the Year Round," written in the pleasantly playful manner which is characteristic of Charles Dickens, and which usually bus (as in this case), a deep and serious meaning underlying it. Now impoitant as the suliject of land tenures and land dealings may be in England, it is of so much greater importance here, that we do not hesitate to avail ourselves of the article referred to, so as to lay before those of our readers who miy not have previously seen it, some notice of the plan described therein, whose object is so to facilitate dealings in laud in the way of mortgages, as to lender property in land as portable as bank-notes.

The plan we are about to notice, has arisen out of toe Irish Incumbered Estates Court, and has been proposed by one of the Commissioners whose working of that Court has been so eminently successful. In about eight years, nearly two millions ol acres have been sold by the Court, into which nearly twenty-five millions sterling have been paid as the purchase money. The new feature introduced into landholding by the Act establishing this Court is, that a new and indefeasible title is issued by the Court, so brief that it is said " the printed forms of conveyance barely fills " twenty lines, ov half a page of duodecimo " print," and so easy of execution, that one of the Commissioners at the first sate said, •* The "purchaser can have his conveyance executed, sealed, and delivered, this very day." Of this title, the article we quote proceeds to say :—

" We hold in onrhands, a clean bright square "of vellum, which can be read through within "a space of five minutes. Judge Prospero has " waved his ruler, and the grim fortress of " Giant Blunderbore comes crashing down in "a dust and crumble of ruin, and discovers "the amiable little fairy, Good Title, standiug " unharmed iv the middle.

"This little square of parchment is unim- " peachable. It cannot be cut or shredded, or " morally speakiug, have a hole picked in it ; •' still less can it be visited by the tremendous " operation of being driven through by a coach "and six. It is saturated with the Parliamen " tary elixir, which is —omnipotence. It bids " defiance to the powers of darkness and to "ingenious solicitors. No one, to use the "proper technical phrase, ' can go behind its ' back;' that i.s, a part from the small accoin''oiodat'ou it would afford for such conceal"ment, it has the power of healing all fl.tws "and fatal errors prior t<» its own."

The Landed Estates Court in Ireland (which has taken the place of the Incuinbered Estates Court), having ttie power to issue titles in the

same manuer as its predecessor, it is now proposed to graft on this brief and indefeasible title, an equally easy and simple mode of raising money on mortgage of landed property After illustrating the cumbrous prncass of investigating titles which is now in use (and which has to be repeated as often as any new transaction takes place), the proposed plan is thus described, (Mr. Styles being the supposed proprietor of the imaginary " Blackacre estate.")

"It is proposed then, that when Mr. Styles is "receiving his little vellum strip which is his " title an J conveyance, there should be handed to "him a number of little notes of parliament to be " called debentures, printed and filled ing to a certain form. At that moment they " have no value, but they can be made valuable "at any moment. Take it that for Blackacre "there has been paid a sum of twenty thousand "pounds, then Mr. Styles shall receive with his " purchase ten of these blank forms, or notes, " each for one thousand pounds, or altogether " equalling one-half the value of the estate. "These blank forms arc put by in Mr. Styles' "desk. Byaml-by, when Mr. Styles becomes " pressed for moneys, and in that disagreeable "position that he must have two thousand "pouHds before this time to-morrow; he gets "out two of his vellum debentures, has them properly stamped and registered (there are, of "cmrse, little technical guarantees against fraud ''and forgery, which are in this place imma"terial) and takes them, as he would. " railway scrip, or stock, to a broker, to be eon- " verted into coin, precisely like those other securities. Interest at so much percent will be " payable to the holder."

" The advantages of this plan are veiy strik'"ing. It will be observed, thai as the debentures are created a'ong with the first possession of the estate, and as they enter, as it " were, into being with it, there can be no charge "or incumbrance previous t> theirs in date, " Again, the existence of the debentures, and "their number is|carefu!ly noted in the body of " the conveyance of the estate ; and, on the"other hand, in etch debenture, is a description lt of the conveyance. Thus any one who would! "fraudulently try to raise money after exhausting his debenture, would be betrayed the " moment he exhibited his conveyance."

The writer acknowledges that it is not a novel scheme, but that similar ones are already in ope" ration in Russia, Prussia, Poland, Austria, Baia ri.t, Belgium, Saxony, iianover, Denmark and. France, and an a proof of the. soundness of the plan, he mentions that during all the German wars, these *' territorial" securities were always quoted eight to ten per cent higher than the ordinary trovernment funds. He also refers to a Land Bunk us essential to the satisfactory working of the plan, but this is a subject th it will require an article for itself so ne other time. We need here only express the hope that, like Mr. Torrens, Mr. Sewell will persevere in the good work to which lie lias set himself until property in land, the very capital of a new country, shall be effectually " mobilised." On

the complete establishment of the system of title which the Assembly has authorised I to be introduced, and which it is Mr. i Sewell's pleasure and duly to carry into effect, (we have little doubt but that thete will, at no j very distant date, he introduced a system for j facilitating mortgage.', either on the plan above described or on some other equally simple one.