Ground rent

oceanclub

Just a query related to the history of our house than any pressing legal matter:

In amongst the documents I have is a Land Registry Vesting Certificate which shows that the ground rent was bought out back in 2004 under the 1978 LANDLORD AND TENANT (GROUND RENTS) (NO. 2) ACT.

On the document under part 1 it shows the plot of ground as subject of a lease made in 1911 between the then Royal Bank of Ireland and the then owner of the house.

The bit I'm curious about is part 2, which is a name I've never seen; neither the owner of the house at the time (whose name is at the top of the document) or any other owner.

Is this the person to whom ground rent was payable (ie, descendent of the owner of the land on which it was built?)

P.

cml387

yes, it's likely to be the landlord who originally owned the land on which your house was built.
It's an interesting piece of social history as well.

Did you know that all of Castlebar paid ground rent to Lord Lucan?

And that they stopped paying after he disappeared in 1974.

NUTLEY BOY

Was the ground rent [fee simple interest] acquired on a consent basis or through the arbitration scheme ?

I ask because of a situation we had a few years ago. Our title was leasehold. The ground landlord offered to sell us the "ground rent" on the consent basis and nominated a purchase price.

We then heard from them very quickly that they had made a mistake as there was another legal interest above theirs. So, if we had purchased what we thought was the fee simple interest we would have been in error.

On the basis of that experience we bought out the ground rent [fee simple interest] through the arbitration scheme. The advice we had was that purchase through the arbitration scheme gave us a fee simple title that was completely defensible against all comers for all time.

Carawaystick

cml387 wrote: »

yes, it's likely to be the landlord who originally owned the land on which your house was built.
It's an interesting piece of social history as well.

Did you know that all of Castlebar paid ground rent to Lord Lucan?

And that they stopped paying after he disappeared in 1974.

All of Dundalk was sold around 2007/08

oceanclub

cml387 wrote: »

yes, it's likely to be the landlord who originally owned the land on which your house was built.
It's an interesting piece of social history as well.

Did you know that all of Castlebar paid ground rent to Lord Lucan?

And that they stopped paying after he disappeared in 1974.

In this case it was to the Webbs of Roebuck House, Clonskeagh, who I guess must have owned some land around Stoneybatter?

P.

ittakestwo

NUTLEY BOY wrote: »

Was the ground rent [fee simple interest] acquired on a consent basis or through the arbitration scheme ?

I ask because of a situation we had a few years ago. Our title was leasehold. The ground landlord offered to sell us the "ground rent" on the consent basis and nominated a purchase price.

We then heard from them very quickly that they had made a mistake as there was another legal interest above theirs. So, if we had purchased what we thought was the fee simple interest we would have been in error.

On the basis of that experience we bought out the ground rent [fee simple interest] through the arbitration scheme. The advice we had was that purchase through the arbitration scheme gave us a fee simple title that was completely defensible against all comers for all time.

I believe technically the fee simple owner of all land in Ireland is the State. The reason being if you die and you have no next of kin, your land passes to the State. We inherited this law from british law where all land would pass to the Queen on death if no next of kin. This is why some claim the Queen is actually the richest person in the world as she is the fee simple owner of all land in the British empire.

4ensic15

ittakestwo wrote: »

I believe technically the fee simple owner of all land in Ireland is the State. The reason being if you die and you have no next of kin, your land passes to the State. We inherited this law from british law where all land would pass to the Queen on death if no next of kin. This is why some claim the Queen is actually the richest person in the world as she is the fee simple owner of all land in the British empire.

Technically, a person holds in fee simple from the crown, not the other way around. This was abolished in ireland in 2009. If you die with no next of kin, the land goes to the beneficiaries of your will.

Peregrinus

4ensic15 wrote: »

Technically, a person holds in fee simple from the crown, not the other way around. This was abolished in ireland in 2009. If you die with no next of kin, the land goes to the beneficiaries of your will.

If you have no will, and no next-of-kin, your property goes to the state as your "ultimate intestate successor". That much is true.

But this is not because of a legal fiction or principle that all land is ultimate held under grants from the state, as successor to the crown, and therefore when land title fails the land reverts to the state. It's because the Oireachtas has legislated for the state to be the ultimate intestate successor to all property (not just land) - Succession Act 1965 s. 73(1).

4ensic15

Peregrinus wrote: »

If you have no will, and no next-of-kin, your property goes to the state as your "ultimate intestate successor". That much is true.

But this is not because of a legal fiction or principle that all land is ultimate held under grants from the state, as successor to the crown, and therefore when land title fails the land reverts to the state. It's because the Oireachtas has legislated for the state to be the ultimate intestate successor to all property (not just land) - Succession Act 1965 s. 73(1).

The 2009 Act removed the notion of tenure of land. Land is no longer held from the crown or its presumed successor.