A 10-year project to register all government-owned land will cost an estimated £7.8m.

Costings were revealed in a report laid before this month’s Tynwald sitting which criticises the lack of progress with the registration project - and recommends that legislation to reform the law on the registration of land should be introduced as soon as possible.

The report by the Constitutional and Legal Affairs and Justice Committee recommends that all land owned by the Isle of Man Government should be registered with the Land Registry and that it would be it realistic to plan for this to be completed by 2035.

Giving evidence to the committee, former Treasury Minister Dr Alex Allinson said the cost of this had been estimated at £7.8m if the bulk of the work was carried out in-house and the bill would increase ‘quite considerably’ if it was outsourced to the private sector.

The report provides an update to one from the same committee in 2021 which considered a 2019 Tynwald Day petition on the law of adverse possession.

That previous report recommended that the Council of Ministers direct the registration of all Government landholdings.

Tynwald subsequently resolved that a target should be set for the registration of the government estate by 2030, with a project plan to be brought to Tynwald by February 2022.

But the committee heard in 2024 that this still hadn’t materialised and the exact figure of the currently registered government estate was not known.

The committee report states: ‘We are disappointed with the progress made on the registration of the government estate. We believe that the registration of the government estate is crucial in encouraging the voluntary registration of land on the island.’

It said that with the ‘right level of commitment’, it would be realistic to register all government land in 10 years.

The Land Registry calculated that only just over a quarter - 25.86% - of all land in the Isle of Man is registered.

In its report the committee recommended that further incentives should be created to increase the uptake of voluntary land registration. It called for an educational programme to raise awareness of the benefits of land registration for the general public.

Petitioner Mark Cleator had called for a change in land registration law in 2019, claiming a parcel of land near Laxey had been ‘stolen from him legally’.

He said the land had been taken off him by adverse possession between 1950 and 1971, leaving him ‘landlocked’ and denying him access to his field.

Under Manx law, it was possible for the non-paper owner of piece of land to claim what is known as possessionary title, if certain conditions were met for a period of 21 year. These include that the claimant must have intended exclusive possession and the paper owner must have been dispossessed or discontinued possession.

The 2021 report recommended that the law on adverse possession be brought in line with that in England and Wales and called for a review of the triggers for compulsory land registration.