Part of Land Registration Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 12:00 pm on 11 December 2001.
The object of the amendment, which relates to proceedings in the other place, through which we appear not to have made the desired impression on the contenders on this battleground, is that the content of registrable dispositions should be determined not by rules but by the particular terms of individual transactions. Although the Land Registry wishes to control the form of documents submitted to it to ensure that they can be admitted to the register in the most efficient way, there seems absolutely no reason why the content should be prescribed by general rules, given that such content varies widely depending on the individual terms of each transaction. I hope that the Minister will also take account of the important point that freedom of contract makes the United Kingdom an attractive place to do business. In that regard, there should be no unnecessary constraints, and I should be interested to hear his comments on those points.