Registration of Title

I would not seek space in which to respond to the letter ([1985] Gazette, 20 November, 3311) f rom Mr E J Pryer, the Chief Land Registrar, and Professor J T Farrand, a Law Commissioner, were it not for the fact that it seems designed to cast some doubt, implied if not express, on the accuracy of my earlier letter ([1985] Gazette, 24 October, 2964).
In fact, your correspondents have skated carefully around the substance of my complaint. No-one (least of all I) would deny that the Law Commission constantly has 'discussions and consultations' with the Land Registry. No-one would deny that these sometimes serve to identify reforms which are agreeable to both parties (and I am pleased if these now include remedying the substantial drafting defects of the Land Registration Acts, though it remains to be seen how fundamental this exercise proves to be).
But equally, I hope, no-one will dispute my central assertion: that if the Law Commission wishes, in discharge of it statutory duty, to make any law reform recommendations, however desirable, which happen to involve additional work for the registry, those recommendations will be resisted on the ground that they would divert manpower from the tast of extending compulsory registration. As a result, the recommendations will not be published or, if published, implemented. In this way, I repeat, the Land Registry is able to dictate the substantive law of England and Wales.
I understand that Professor Farrand may these days wish to join Mr Pryer in presenting a united front. But as they walk off together hand in hand towards the sunset, let us briefly remind ourselves of what actually happened to the Law Commission's Report on 'The Law of Positive and Restrictive Covenants' (1984, Law Com No. 127). It was agreed, even by the Registry, that the new 'land obligations' ought to be registrable in the same way as easements. But this work, and because of their opposition the Law Commission felt bound (in an obsequious passage which I am a little ashamed to have drafted) to suggest an alternative and much inferir means of registration which would not involve this extra work.
But it was all to no avail, because when the President of The Law Society urged the Lord Chancellor to implement the report, the Lord Chancellor still felt able to say that a 'difficulty which lies in the way of early implementation is the additional manpower which I am advised by the Chief Land Registrar will be required in the district registries to give effect to [the report's] recommendations', and to add, 'I am sure that . . . I am right to give priority to the extension of the areas of compulsory registration' ([1984]) Gazette, 3 October, 2666).
I rest my case.