The Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act, 1907, and The Estate of Thomas St. John Grant, The Supposed Owner of Lands (No. 2)

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 14 May 1914
• Date: 14 May 1914
• Court: Court of Appeal (Ireland)

In the Matter of the Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act, 1907, and the Estate of Thomas St. John Grant, The Supposed Owner of Lands (No. 2) (1).

Appeal.

CASES

DETERMINED BY

THE CHANCERY DIVISION

OF

THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN IRELAND,

AND BY

THE IRISH LAND COMMISSION,

AND ON APPEAL THEREFROM IN

THE COURT OF APPEAL.

1914.

Compulsory purchase — Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act, 1907 (7 Edw. 7, c. 56), s. 2, sub-s. 4 — Price — Value to the owner — Estates Commissioners.

In the case of lands compulsorily acquired by the Estates Commissioners under the Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act, 1907, the sum which the owner is entitled to be paid should represent, not the price which might reasonably be obtained upon a voluntary sale in the open market, but the value of the lands to the owner.

So held by the Court of Appeal, O'Brien, L.C., and Holmes, L.J., Cherry, L.C.J., dissenting.

Appeal from an order of Wylie, J.

The Estates Commissioners proceeded in this matter to acquire compulsorily the estate of the owner in certain lands in the County Waterford, containing 63a. 1r. 25p., all in the owner's possession, and offered the owner as the price thereof a sum of £1350, payable in guaranteed 3 per cent. stock equal in nominal value thereto. The owner, being dissatisfied with this price, appealed to the Judicial Commissioner, who dismissed the appeal, but gave leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal on the following question of law:— “That the judge, in estimating the price to be paid by the Estates Commissioners for the purchase of the lands to be acquired in this matter, was wrong in taking into consideration the fact that the vendor would obtain the percentage payable under sect. 48 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, in addition to the purchase price offered by the Estates Commissioners.” The Court of Appeal, by an order of the 5th May, 1913, remitted the case to Wylie, J., with an intimation that, in fixing the purchase price,

the bonus should not be taken into consideration (1); whereupon by an order of the 19th June, 1913, Wylie, J., being of opinion that the offer of the Estates Commissioners represented the full market value of the lands compulsorily acquired, dismissed the owner's appeal against the determination of the Estates Commissioners.

The following judgment was delivered by—

Wylie, J.:—

In order to prevent any misconception as to my decision in this case, I think it is necessary, having regard to what has already taken place here and in the Court of Appeal, to state more fully than I usually do in such cases the grounds upon, and the method by which, I arrived at my former, as well as my present, decision.

By the 1st sect. of the Evicted Tenants Act, 1907, the Estates Commissioners are only empowered to acquire land compulsorily if they have offered for the land what is there described as “a price which appears to them to represent the value thereof,” and the same section requires them to declare any land so acquired an estate, thus providing that the bonus which was given under the Act of 1903 to aid voluntary sales should be given to the vendor in addition to the price offered by the Estates Commissioners or fixed on appeal by the Judicial Commissioner.

In sect. 2, sub-s. 4, the required offer is described as “such a price as appears to the Estates Commissioners prima facie to be a reasonable price.” Then sect. 2, sub-s. 8, provides that any person aggrieved by any determination of the Estates Commissioners fixing the price may appeal to the Judicial Commissioner, who shall hear and determine the appeal. There is nothing else in the Act throwing any light upon what is meant by “value” of the land in the 1st sect., or “reasonable price” in the 2nd sect., though both expressions describe the same thing—viz., the price or sum which the Estates Commissioners must offer to enable them to exercise their compulsory powers.

The question then is how is this “value” or “reasonable price” to be arrived at in the case of compulsory purchase? Is the fact

that the vendor will receive a bonus in addition to the price, to be considered at all in fixing the price? If the price were being fixed by voluntary agreement, everyone familiar with land purchase knows that the amount of the bonus is taken into account by the vendor, and in many cases where the Estates Commissioners have made an offer, the reply of the vendor has been: “I will accept the offer if you will guarantee that I will get a 12 per cent. bonus.” The owner, therefore, in deciding whether the price offered is reasonable, takes into account what amount of bonus he will get in addition to the price.

That being so, the question at once occurred to me, when I was called upon to fix the price where the owner did not consider the price offered adequate:—Was I to leave out of account an important and valuable element that the owner himself would take into account in deciding whether the price was adequate? I was of opinion that I could not do so; that my decision should be based on the same materials as the owner himself would consider in deciding the same question. Accordingly, the method I adopted was this:—It being a case of compulsory purchase, I thought the owner should, in accordance with the usual principle applied in compulsory cases, get in cash what would represent the full value of the land to him, worked as he worked it in connexion with his other lands, but nothing more. I therefore fixed, in the first place, what upon the facts and evidence in the case I considered would be the full value of the land to the owner in cash. I then ascertained what amount of stock at the price of the day would, with the cash bonus added, be equal to such full value in cash. The amount of stock so ascertained I considered to be the “value” or “reasonable price” which the owner should get, in addition to the bonus. I could not then see, nor do I yet see, how an owner, even in a case of compulsory purchase, could expect to be paid in cash from the public funds more than the full value of the land to him; and it was immaterial to him that part of the cash was called purchase-money and part bonus.

The Court of Appeal do not appear to me to have understood my method. They seem to think that I considered the bonus as part of the “reasonable price” or purchase-money. Nothing could be further from my mind. They also appear to think that neither the Estates Commissioners nor I could know, at the time of fixing the price, whether a bonus would be payable, or what its amount would he. That is quite a mistake. The owner has often been assured on both points before accepting the price offered. And I may add that frequently at that stage, where the legal adviser to the Estates Commissioners has some doubt on these points, he takes my ruling on them at that time. It is quite true that at that time we do not know for certain to whom the bonus will be paid, but the same can be said as to the purchase-money. The person dealt with as owner may turn out to have no title at all, and he will get neither bonus nor purchase-money.

The Court of Appeal, however, has decided that my method of arriving at the “reasonable price” is incorrect; that such price should be fixed without regard to the bonus; and that the price should be such...