We have recently been informed that the Minister for Education and Skills Ruairí Quinn has announced that the Residential Institutions Redress Board is being wound down. This means that the Board will not consider applications received on or after 17th September 2011. Therefore if you know of anybody who was in a Residential Institution when they were young and who may wish to discuss their experiences with a view to seeing if they are entitled to any compensation perhaps you would let them know that their time for doing this is running out and they should seek legal advice immediately.
Legislation has been introduced under the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009 regarding various rights including those commonly known as rights of way. If you use a right of way over somebody else’s property which is not registered either in the Land Registry or the Registry of Deeds, you should at this point take steps to ascertain as to whether this Right can be registered. After the 1st December 2012 any rights that you might have accrued by usage of such a right of way will be lost, if you have not come to a written agreement with the Landowner over which the right of way passes and which right of way has been registered in the Property Registration Authority. If the Landowner over which the right of way passes does not agree to give you a written right of way, you will have to wait a further nine years to get that right re-established and then registered in the Property Registration Authority. In the meantime the owner of the land over which your right of way passes may take steps to prevent the continuance of the right of way. It is therefore important that if you or anybody you know has a right of way over another’s land, that steps are taken to have it registered on or before 1st December 2012. This can either be done by consent with the land owner or by Court Order if the Landowner refuses to give you a written right of way. At the present time there is a Bill before the Oireachtas which hopefully will make the procedure, in the absence of the Landowner consent easier, but until this Bill is passed by the Dail the above is the situation. However, until that happens it is necessary to complete forms for submission to the land registry after having them signed by the landowner.
the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010 came into operation on 1st January 2011. This deals with same-sex couples who are living together as well as opposite sex couples who are co-habiting or living together. A co-habitant has a specific definition. And there are a number of other factors which need to be considered, determining whether or not a person is a cohabitant which includes the duration of the relationship, the financial arrangements of the couple and whether or not there are children. The legislation comes into play if a person has lived with somebody else for at least five years or for two years where there is a child of the relationship. The provisions of the Act and the reliefs that a person may obtain will only come into effect after the end of the relationship which, as mentioned, is two years if there are children and five years if there are no children. This could have far-reaching effects if there is already a spouse or on death when the person’s estate is being distributed. Cohabitants or people living together may opt out of the legislation by entering into a cohabitation agreement.
20-07-2011