The Land Registry has published proposals to strengthen the notification process for voluntary registration of land.

It comes after a Tynwald select committee looked at the issue and came up with a series of recommendations following a petition for redress of grievance presented by Ballaugh residents John Craine and Annie Hommet in 2015.

While the select committee recommended introducing new legislation, the Land Registry is proposing making changes using its existing legislative powers.

It has launched a public consultation on the proposals, which will run until September 4.

Martyn Perkins MHK, political member of the Department of Economic Development with responsibility for the Land Registry, said: ’The opening of this consultation concludes a long period of deliberation within the Land Registry as its officers and the registrar have sought to find a way to implement the recommendations of Tynwald in an effective and proportionate manner by adapting their procedural requirements within their existing legislative delegations.’

A Land Registry spokesman said registration brings ’certainty and simplicity into future conveyancing, replacing the process of showing ownership based on historic title deeds’.

Land can be voluntarily registered by its owners even when no transaction is occurring.

The Land Registry has proposed that a notice would have to be erected on the land subject to registration and that neighbouring owers would have to be written to or a newspaper advertisement published.

The spokesman continued: ’The current consultation has been launched to seek opinions on how best to strengthen the notification process surrounding voluntary registration of land to ensure that any objections to registration (which may otherwise lead to lengthy legal objections) can be dealt with at an early stage.

’A similar notification process is used for applications to register land by adverse possession (e.g. "squatters rights") or when no evidence of title can be provided.

’It is intended that these processes will be brought into line to provide certainty to applicants for registration in future. Generally compulsory registrations are exempt from the obligation to publicise the application to register land.’

In the petition for redress of grievance, the pair stated they had discovered ’by chance’ that part of their property and road leading to it had been registered as part of a neighbour’s property.

The petition states: ’Currently an erroneous or malicious property registration can be carried out covertly without any need to inform the owners of neighbouring properties.’

View the consulation online at consult.gov.im