Who Owns Britain (and Ireland)

Date created	Sunday 14 November 2004 (at 5.11 pm)
Author	kevin Cahill
Details	The Irish Law Reform Commission, a state body, have recommended that tenure, the system under which land is owned in Ireland, should be abolished. Tenure is a feudal concept, first introduced in England after the Norman's occupied the country following the battle of Hastings in 1066, was introduced in Ireland after 1172, when the Normans occupied that country. Under the tenurial system all land is held from the monarch. When the Irish State was founded in 1921 the feudal rights of the British Crown were transferred to the new state. This means that all any person or legal body in Ireland owns is an " an interest in an estate in land, in fee simple." If freehold it is held " in possession absolute". If a lease it is held "for a term of years or lives". No person in Ireland actually owns land itself. That belongs to the state. The same system operates in the United Kingdom and most of the former colonies, but especially Australia,Canada and New Zealand. The Law Commission recommends that most of the English & British Statutes still on the Irish Statute book be repealed or amended. There are about 150 of these, including statutes dated 1260 and 1285. The Law Commission recommends that all land be held 'allodially' that is to say directly. Having made that recommendation the Law Commission then contradicts itself, and suggests retaining the concept of 'an interest in an estate in land' There is no explanation offered for this anomaly, but it would seem a device to retain a legal fiction when the basis for the legal fiction had been swept away. The Irish Government is expected to act on the Commissions recommendations in 2005 or early 2006, after a period of consultation ending on Dec 31 2004
Links (will open in a new window)	Law Reform Commission of Ireland