PART V.—GENERAL.

64. —After the passing of this Act no application or agreement to fix a judicial rent under the Land Law (Ireland) Acts in respect of any holding shall be listed for hearing or filed.

65. —(1) Where the Land Commission have after the date of the passing of this Act made any advance for the purchase of a holding or parcel, the proprietor thereof shall not sub-divide or let the holding or parcel without the consent of the Land Commission, and every attempted sub-division or letting in contravention of this provision shall be void as against all persons, and on any such contravention the holding or parcel shall at the option of the Land Commission vest in them.

(2) In the case of any holding which is subject to any charges in respect of an annuity in favour of the Board of Works created in pursuance of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, so much of the 44th and 45th sections of the said Act as prohibits, without the consent of the Board, the alienation, assignment, sub-division or sub-letting of a holding charged as in the said sections mentioned and declares that, in the event of such prohibition being contravened, the holdings shall be forfeited to the Board, and also so much of section 2 of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1872, as relates to the sale of holdings in lieu of forfeiture, shall be repealed and the prohibitions contained in sub-section (1) of this section against sub-division and letting shall henceforth apply to all such holdings as if they had been contained in the said Acts of 1870 and 1872, but only during such time as any part of the annuity charged on such holding remains unpaid.

(3) Where the proprietor sub-divides his holding for a limited period by way of family arrangement or for other similar reason the Land Commission from time to time may by general regulations authorise the registering authority to register the person claiming under any instrument executed by the proprietor which creates such temporary sub-division and shall be deemed to have assented to any sub-division to which effect has been given by registration pursuant to such regulations.

66. —(1) The Land Commission may, with the consent of the registered owner of two or more holdings, subject to purchase annuities, consolidate the holdings and the annuities in accordance with regulations made by the Minister for Finance.

(2) In any case where, pursuant to sub-section (3) of section 67 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, a holding subject to a purchase annuity and a portion of land charged with a portion of another purchase annuity are deemed to be one holding, the purchase annuity and the portion of the other purchase annuity shall be deemed to be one purchase annuity and shall be consolidated in accordance with regulations to be made by the Minister for Finance.

67. —Where a purchase agreement has been entered into or is deemed to have been entered into by a tenant of a holding, and owing to the death or absence of a tenant or otherwise, a difficulty arises in ascertaining in whom the tenancy of the holding is vested, the Land Commission may nominate a person to represent the tenant for the purposes of the sale, and may vest the holding in him accordingly, but the interest so vested shall be a graft upon the interest of the tenant and of the representative in whom the holding is vested, and shall be subject to any rights or equities arising from its being such graft.

68. —Every person who, for the purposes of this Act, is deemed to have entered into a purchase agreement shall be deemed to have been capable of entering into such agreement notwithstanding infancy or lunacy, or any other disability to which he may have been subject.

69. —(1) The provisions of sections 4 and 20 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, and of Section 18 of the Irish Land Act, 1909, shall be extended so as to include tillage as one of the purposes for which advances may be made under those sections and it shall be lawful for the Minister for Agriculture to amend and frame schemes so as to include this purpose.

(2) So much of section 20 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, as requires provisions for appeals to the Lord Lieutenant to be inserted in any such scheme and so much of any scheme as provided for such appeals shall cease to have effect, and the other powers declared in the said sections to be exercisable by the Lord Lieutenant and the Department of Agriculture shall be exercised by the Minister for Agriculture in the case of all existing schemes as well as in the case of future advances and schemes.

(3) Any person aggrieved by any act or omission of any trustees in carrying into effect a scheme for the user of land framed or approved under section 20 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, may take proceedings in the County Court by way of equity civil bill for the execution of the trusts of the scheme, and the jurisdiction of the County Court shall extend to any such proceedings notwithstanding that the land subject to the trusts exceeds thirty pounds in annual value.

(4) It shall be lawful for a County Borough Council or an Urban District Council or Town Commissioners to purchase any parcel of land under section 4 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, for any of the purposes mentioned in that section as extended by sub-section (1) of this section, save for the purposes of the Labourers (Ireland) Acts, 1883 to 1896, and any such Council or Town Commissioners may act as trustees for those purposes and may obtain advances for the purchase, and the provisions of section 18 of the Irish Land Act, 1909, shall apply to any such purchase as if County Borough Councils, Urban Councils and Town Commissioners were mentioned in that section.

The amounts required for payment of the instalments of the purchase annuity for, lands purchased by a County Borough Council or an Urban Council under this section shall be defrayed out of the poor-rate, and for lands purchased by Town Commissioners under this section out of the town rate.

70. —For the purposes of this Act the appointed day shall be such day or days as may be fixed by the Land Commission and different days may be fixed for different provisions and different purposes of this Act and for different holdings or groups of holdings and different parcels or groups of parcels of untenanted land.

71. —(1) After the passing of this Act, sub-section (3) of section 72 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, sub-section (1) of section 29, and sub-section (3) of section 30 of the Irish Land Act, 1909, in respect of improvements effected by the Congested Districts Board or the Land Commission, shall cease to have effect

(2) After the passing of this Act the provisions of sub-section (3) of section 36 and sub-section (2) of section 72 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, in so far as they relate to the payments on account of sinking fund after the expiration of five years from the vesting of land in the Land Commission or the purchase of land by the Congested Districts Board shall cease to have effect as regards land purchased by the Land Commission or the Congested Districts Board under any Act prior to this Act.

72. —The powers for the apportionment of an annuity or the discharge of portion of a holding from liability in respect of an annuity conferred on the Land Commission by sub-section (3) of section 38 of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1896, as extended by sub-section (1) of section 67 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, may be exercised by the Commissioners of Public Works as regards an annuity charged on a holding in repayment of an advance made by the said Commissioners for the purpose of the purchase thereof pursuant to the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870.

73. —(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, the expression “subsequent purchase agreements” means agreements entered into or deemed to have been entered into by or with the Land Commission on or after the date of the passing of this Act:

Provided that purchase agreements entered into at any time on the resale by the Land Commission of land purchased or agreed to be purchased, by the Irish Land Commission or the Congested Districts Board for Ireland, before the date of the passing of this Act, shall be treated as purchase agreements entered into before the date of the passing of this Act and not as subsequent purchase agreements.

(2) The expression “tenanted land” means land held under any contract of tenancy other than a fee farm grant, or lease renewable for ever for lives or years or lease for a term of years of which sixty or more are unexpired at the date of the passing of this Act, or a letting for the purpose of temporary depasturage, agistment or conacre, or for temporary convenience, or to meet a temporary necessity, and the expression “untenanted land” shall be construed accordingly:

Provided that where land has become tenanted land as above defined by reason of a contract of tenancy not being a renewal of a previous tenancy entered into on or after the first day of September nineteen hundred and twenty-two, then:—

(a) if the holding is in a congested districts county, the tenancy shall, if the Land Commission before the appointed day so declare, be deemed void as against the Land Commission and the holding shall vest in the Land Commission as untenanted land, and there shall be payable to the tenant such compensation as the Judicial Commissioner may declare him entitled to in respect of any sums he may have expended on improvements. Such compensation shall be payable in 4½ per cent. Land Bonds; and

(b) if the holding is situate elsewhere, the land shall be treated as tenanted land for the purpose of the provisions of this Act vesting tenanted land in the Land Commission, save as to the price thereof, but shall not be sold under this Act to the tenant unless the Land Commission certify that the creation of the tenancy was in the interests of the country. If the Land Commission so certify the price shall be ascertained as if the land was tenanted land, but if the Land Commission do not so certify the price shall be ascertained as if the land was untenanted land.

(3) The expression “the Land Purchase Acts” shall have the same meaning as in the Irish Land Act, 1909, save that it shall, where the context so admits, include any subsequent Act now in force which is by its terms to be construed as one with the Land Purchase Acts and this Act, and the expression “the Land Law Acts” and “the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Acts” shall have the same meaning as in the Irish Land Act, 1909.

(4) The expression “relieving congestion” means the provision of land for the relief of a person or persons having an uneconomic holding or uneconomic holdings or for a person or persons whose holding or holdings has or have been acquired for the relief of persons having uneconomic holdings.

74. —For the purpose of carrying this Act into effect the Executive Council may by Order make such adaptations of any enactment relative to Land Purchase in Ireland passed prior to the passing of this Act as appear to them to be necessary or proper, including such adaptations of enactments applicable to sales of estates as may be necessary to make the same applicable to sales of holdings or of parcels of untenanted land.

75. —If any difficulty arises in determining the land which by virtue of this Act is vested in the Land Commission, or otherwise for carrying this Act into effect, the Executive Council may, by Order, authorise the Land Commission to take all such steps and do all such things as may appear to them necessary or expedient for carrying this Act into effect, and any such Order shall have effect as if enacted in this Act.

76. —The Land Commission may, after consultation with the President of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland, make rules for carrying into effect the provisions of this Act, and the term “prescribed” in this Act means, unless the context otherwise requires, prescribed by rules made under this section:

Provided always that any Rules of Court made to carry out the provisions of this Act, in so far as they concern the relief of congestion, shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas, and if either House shall, within twenty-one days of such Rules of Court being tabled, pass a resolution annulling such Rules of Court, such Rules of Court shall be annulled, but such annulments shall not prejudice or invalidate any matter or thing previously done under such Rules of Court.

77. —All moneys required by the Land Commission for exercising its powers under this Act or otherwise for carrying this Act into effect shall (save in so far as such moneys are otherwise specifically provided for by this Act) to such extent as may be approved by the Minister for Finance be paid out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas.

78. —The Acts specified in the second schedule to this Act are hereby repealed to the extent mentioned in the third column of that schedule.

79. —This Act may be cited as the Land Act, 1923, and shall be construed as one with the Land Law Acts, the Land Purchase Acts, and the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Acts, and may be cited with those Acts.