Clause 26 - Protection of disponees
Land Registration Bill [Lords]
12:15 pm
Mr William Cash (Stone, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 25, in page 12, line 11, leave out ''seven'' and insert ''fourteen''.
Although it may be the objective to reflect limitations of owners' powers on the register, if a qualification is omitted from the register by mistake, it must be against public policy to legitimise dispositions that legislation has made void. There are restrictions on dispositions by local authorities and by charities. Subsection (3) appears to mean that someone could otherwise acquire a good title. The Bill seeks to protect people who take a transfer of registered land when it is apparently valid on the face of the register. While that is certainly useful, it must be against policy that it should overrule statutory restrictions imposed on particular landowners.
The register would normally reflect such restrictions, but in practice one has to deal with the cases in which that safeguard falls down. Restrictions are placed on certain disposals by charities, local authorities and registered social landlords. In those cases, we believe that it is extremely important that human error may be allowed for. In a nutshell, it is our view that is simply wrong to write off a qualification of an owner's powers on the register in the event that the registrar makes a mistake.