LAND LAW AND CONVEYANCING REFORMS

This article is reprinted from the September 1969 issue of The Modern Law Review, a publication having wide circulation among English lawyers, but not generally available in the United States. This lone exception to the Journal's rule against republication of material from our sources is justified because its explanation of the Law of Property Act 1969 will make possible more fruitful interchange of experience between members of our Section and their English brethren at the London meeting this summer. The 1969 Act may be the most significant English land law reform since the Law of Property and related Acts of 1925. The article offers an evaluation of various English reforms for their contributions toward simplifying conveyancing, improving security of titles and decreasing costs of transactions. The author also shows the role that lawyers can play in adjusting laws and practices to changing conditions even in a field as relatively static as land law. In republishing this study, it is not suggested that reforms appropriate for England are necessarily appropriate for us with our different structures of government, organization of lawyers and widely varying title practices, but few American lawyers with experience in title matters can read the article without thinking of some ways to improve security of titles and reduce costs of transactions.