The Government is facing mounting pressure from the Opposition and the Law Society over its proposal to increase Land Registry charges when there are 86,000 cases awaiting processing.
The Fine Gael justice spokesman, Mr Jim Higgins, will tonight move a Dail motion calling on the Government to defer the fee increase, due to come into effect on May 1st. He will also call for extra staff to clear the spiralling backlog.
The director General of the Law Society, Mr Ken Murphy, last night described the situation at the Land Registry as a "national disgrace" and he said the society was seeking an urgent meeting with the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue. From May 1st, it will cost purchasers £300 to register property transfers worth between £40,000 and £200,000. The fee for properties in excess of £200,000 will be £400, and £500 for properties over £300,000. At present there is a blanket charge of £250 for any property over £30,000.
In relation to a voluntary transfer, the present fee is £30 and this is to rise to £70. The fee for a certified copy of a map showing rights of way will rise from £20 to £50.
There are 86,000 Land Registry cases awaiting processing. In Carlow, Kilkenny and Wexford, the waiting period is 65 weeks. It is 62 weeks in Tipperary and Laois and 60 weeks in Cork, Mayo and Sligo.
Mr Murphy said last night it was wrong that service at the Land Registry is "going through the floor" while the fees are "going through the roof" and he cal led on the Government to postpone changing the Land Registry to semi-State status until a proper level of service was established.
The huge backlog at the Land Registry recently resulted in the office reducing to only one hour a day the time it accepts telephone calls from the public at its Dublin office. This affects all dealings in Cavan, Clare, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Kildare, Leitrim, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Roscommon, Sligo, Westmeath and Wicklow.
"The current levels of delay and, in particular, the recent move to restrict the opportunity to make telephone calls to the Land Registry to just one hour a day, are unacceptable," said Mr Murphy. "The delays in the Land Registry are a national disgrace."
In a letter to Mr O'Donoghue seeking a meeting, Mr Murphy said the increased fees would not be welcomed by house purchasers at this time of grossly inflated house prices. "The society is taken aback by both the size of the fee increases involved and by the creation of certain new heads of charge." Mr Higgins warned last night that the situation was going to spiral out of control unless certain measures were taken by the Minister. He said matters were likely to get worse with the onset of projects under the National Development Plan.
The Fine Gael motion calls for adequate staffing to guarantee that all applications for newly registered properties be complete within a four-month period. He said transfer of land between families should take no more than two months to process.
In a reply to a parliamentary question on the matter recently, the Minister for Justice said the Government has given approval to convert the Land Registry and the Registry of Deeds to a commercial semi-State body.
The new organisation would be expected to operate in a commercial environment and fees would have to be set at levels to ensure the new body was placed on a sound commercial and financial footing.