The land lord

The connoisseur of conveyancing and land-law leader, Prof John Wylie, reflects on decades of Irish property-law transformation. He talks to Mary Hallissey about critical reforms and the ongoing persistent challenges of dismantling archaic legislation 

As the author of pioneering land-law and conveyancing textbooks in Ireland, legal academic John Wylie is a standout figure, and a revered one for all practitioners in the field. 

Irish Land Law and Irish Conveyancing Law, by Wylie, are highly specialised volumes, widely recognised as the definitive works on Irish property law on their publication in the 1970s. 

A legal reformer and academic, Wylie also does hands-on work as a consultant with A&L Goodbody and has a vast network of legal property experts at his fingertips. 

Born in Belfast in 1943, Wylie’s early years were shaped by the contrasting religious backgrounds of his parents – his father, a devout Ulster Presbyterian, while his mother was Church of Ireland. 

It was his maternal uncle, the Reverend (later Canon) John Watson, a Greek, Latin and biblical scholar who looked after three churches in north-west Donegal and eventually became Dean of Raphoe, who was a formative influence. 

As a very young child, Wylie was sent to Donegal to be cared for by his uncle, and his aunt Sheila, who helped her brother with his clergy duties. 

“I didn’t know any different when I was a child,” he recalls. “Donegal felt like home. It was a simpler, quieter existence, and I loved it – swimming in the sea, fishing, and living off the land.” 

The field 

His uncle’s studies, as a church examiner for Greek and Latin, laid the groundwork for Wylie’s future passion for classical studies. 

“It was no accident that I chose to study Latin, Greek, and ancient history,” he reflects. 

Despite this early academic inclination, family health woes redirected his path. His father, the youngest of 11 children, faced health struggles after an initial severe heart attack at the age of 46. 

“He was one of ten boys, and eight of his brothers, who were all married, died in their 20s. They all had massive heart attacks. Why? They all smoked 85 a day, and they lived on the Ulster fry – indeed, every evening would have an Ulster fry,” John recalls. 

“I was in my teens, the eldest of four children, and his heart condition was so bad that my dad clearly was unlikely to work again. I just thought, going to university to study Classics is an indulgence.” 

Despite an aim to study at Oxford, Wylie, a year early, opted instead for law at Queen’s and eventually secured the prestigious Frank Knox Fellowship at Harvard Law School. 

“My father passed away just two months before I was due to leave for Harvard,” he recounts. 

“It was devastating. But my mother insisted that I go. It would have broken his heart if I didn’t. My dad survived to see me get my undergraduate degree, and I then was appointed as a lecturer in Queen’s immediately on graduation.” 

What followed was a poignant act of solidarity from his father’s friends in Belfast law firms, including the law firm where his father worked as the managing clerk. 

“A solicitor arrived at our doorstep one day and said: ‘Don’t worry. We’ll look after your family. Go to Harvard. Do it for your father’.” 

This show of support allowed him to travel to America and pursue his master’s degree in law at Harvard in 1966. 

“I was just overwhelmed. You know, people are so good, and they were wonderful. I would get these regular letters when I was at Harvard telling me everything was all right, not to worry.” 

Returning to Belfast after his time at Harvard, Wylie resumed his role as a lecturer at Queen’s, from 1967-71, where all sorts of interesting people passed through, including the late Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, whom Wylie taught. 

Wylie’s academic career flourished, but even as a young lecturer, he was already thinking about broader law reform and the future of legal education.

Land and freedom 

It was in 1971, at the age of 28, that Wylie received a pivotal invitation. Cardiff Law School was being established, and he was asked to help set it up from scratch. 

He set about acquiring a legal library – one with the extensive Irish material he needed personally. 

A key part of Wylie’s legacy would be his involvement in writing a comprehensive text on Irish land law and its groundbreaking publication in 1975. 

The story behind that book is as much about relationships as it is about law. The late John Buckley, a respected Dublin solicitor and close friend, had suggested Wylie for the project to the Law Society of Ireland. 

The Society felt it was time for a book on Irish land law, to be produced with the support of the Arthur Cox Foundation. 

Despite a heavy teaching load in Cardiff, Wylie maintained a regular routine of commuting to Dublin, where he worked closely with distinguished High and later Supreme Court judge, the late John Kenny, to finalise the manuscript. The judge read every chapter. 

“He had lots of useful suggestions, which I would incorporate. And it was a very good learning experience dealing with a very experienced judge who specialised in property law,” Wylie says. 

Their collaboration was both intellectually rigorous and personally enriching. Their daily regime of work at the Four Courts would be followed by lunch at one, and afterwards a walk around Dublin Zoo, where Kenny was a member. 

“I think the animals at the zoo must have learned a lot about land law during those years!” Wylie laughs. 

Prof Wylie put his foot down at the suggestion that his 1,000-page tome be published in London, fearing drastic cuts to a volume with unknown sales prospects. 

Enter David Kirk, a second-hand legal-book dealer who, despite having no experience in publishing, was eager to take on the monumental task of bringing the book to print, and committed to an initial print run of 2,000. 

This was an extraordinarily brave thing to do, given that there were probably no more than 3,000 solicitors in Ireland at the time. 

The money pit 

Wylie recalls that the initial consignment of copies was stopped at customs in Rosslare, just before the Four Courts’ launch in 1975, but a phone call by the then Law Society director general eased its passage, and almost 300 copies were sold that night, out of the boot of Kirk’s car. 

“Four months later, Kirk rang me up and said: ‘We are doing a reprint!’ In the end, over 9,000 copies of the first edition were sold, which was truly remarkable.” 

With the bit between their teeth, three years later the pair then decided, again with the support of the Law Society and Cox Foundation, to publish a definitive volume on Irish conveyancing law. 

The conveyancing volume led Wylie to strengthen his connections with Dublin property solicitors. He drew on the know-how of well-known practitioners, such as the late John Buckley, Rory O’Donnell, the late Paddy Fagan, Eric Brunker and Ernie Farrell, among others. 

The most important thing in life is not just what you do, but with whom you do it, he says. 

“That’s when I really started to get to know solicitors in Dublin, because doing a very practical subject, such as conveyancing, I felt that I needed the help and guidance of practitioners,” he says. 

“The people you work with, the friendships you build – those are the things that stay with you.” 

Land beyond the law 

The greatest legacy of Wylie’s work is not just the books he has written or the students he has mentored, but the enduring connections he has built along the way. 

“Over the years I would find myself being consulted by Dublin solicitors on tricky points, and I then I just started publishing other books, such as Irish Landlord and Tenant Law.” 

This eventually led to an invitation to become an in-house consultant with A&L Goodbody, a position he still holds over 30 years later, with duties ranging from advising fee-earners, helping to educate trainees, and running breakfast seminars for clients. 

“They treat me handsomely, and I have loved every minute,” he beams. 

As an academic, he found it very beneficial to see the practicalities of property law in action in a big corporate firm: “It was amazing to see what I regarded as obscure areas of law actually cropping up,” he says. 

Prof Wylie’s law-firm work also gave him a clear view of those issues that caused conveyancing blockages: “I was delighted when the Department of Justice suggested I should get involved in big law-reform projects with the Law Reform Commission. I spent most of the early 2000s leading projects on land law, conveyancing reform, and so on.” 

These collaborations included a complete overhaul of Ireland’s antiquated land-law system, much of which dated from centuries of legislation enacted by the British parliament. 

The land that time forgot 

Prof Wylie’s involvement in drafting the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009 is another enduring legacy. 

The reform project, which involved the repeal of over 150 pre-1922 statutes rooted in feudal law, was groundbreaking: “We had a six-month window to draft the bill, and it was a wonderful experience to see the parliamentary process in play,” says Wylie. 

“We got rid of so much of the old nonsense, based on feudal law, that had been dumped on Ireland from the 13th century onwards.” 

Prof Wylie also led a major project on reforming landlord-and-tenant law, which has so far stalled at consultation stage. 

“Our basic landlord-and-tenant law is still based upon the statute that was passed at Westminster in 1860, always known to Irish lawyers as Deasy’s Act,” he says. 

“Its continuance as part of our law is, in my view, outrageous, and goes against everything that successive governments here have been working towards, trying to get rid of all pre-1922 legislation. This sore thumb sticks up still. 

“The bill that I drafted would have got rid of such old acts and replaced them with much more modern legislation. It would also have updated more modern post-1922 legislation relating to landlord-and-tenant law. Sadly, it has just gathered dust.” 

Prof Wylie suspects that the delay may stem from a lack of relevant expertise at governmental level. Speedy enactment would “get rid of all the nonsenses and ambiguities that exist in the current law”, he says. 

“There may be an element of rebalancing [landlord-and-tenant rights], but it’s really a case of getting rid of complications, anomalies, ambiguities that have existed in the legislation for decades, if not centuries, and just need to be tidied up and attuned to modern life.” 

Zombieland 

Another example of ‘nonsense’ is the ground-rents legislation, which is riddled with complications that often seem to render it a complete and utter mess, he adds. 

Prof Wylie was called as an expert witness in the Carrickmacross ground-rents case, which hinged on Earl-of-Essex lands granted in Elizabethan times, and the rights therein. 

“The case eventually went to the Supreme Court and, unfortunately, the judge who gave the judgment of the court seemed to get things partly wrong in several respects, because the way they were interpreting the legislation would have reduced substantially the right of tenants to buy out the freehold. The trouble was, this was a Supreme Court decision and where do you go from there? 

“The answer is that the retailers of Carrickmacross were not prepared to let it go, and they started a campaign to correct what was regarded by most property lawyers as a misinterpretation of the legislation. They eventually persuaded a local solicitor to get a private member’s bill drafted to reverse the Supreme Court rulings and I gave them some help with that.” 

The measures were eventually adopted and enacted as the Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) (Amendments) Act 2019. 

“I have some sympathy for the Supreme Court, because I suspect that none of the judges involved in that appeal would have regarded themselves as expert property lawyers – otherwise they never would have made some of the rulings they did. 

“But the ground-rents legislation is, in some respects, a complete and utter mess. It is exceptionally technical, and a major problem is that it comprises one act, which was then amended by another act, which, in turn, was amended by a further act, and so on. Fitting them together in order to arrive at the correct interpretation of the law becomes a nightmare. 

“It is extremely complicated, even for people who are expert property lawyers. But if ever that was a piece of legislation that needed complete reviewing, and to be completely redrafted in a much more straightforward and simple fashion, it is that one. Maybe some day that will happen.” 

Shadowlands 

Prof Wylie is not convinced that a separate profession of conveyancer is the correct route to follow, since the training required in conveyancing, if the consumer is to be adequately protected, will probably have to be equivalent to that of a solicitor in any case. 

On the prospect of e-conveyancing, Prof Wylie is adamant that it will have to come. 

“The length of time is takes to complete conveyancing transactions has got to change, and I’m completely with the Government in their new strategy of trying to get this done. A major problem is that all the information about a property, which the purchaser needs, is held by all sorts of different bodies. 

“What is needed is for all that information to be readily accessible in one central hub, because all these bodies vary enormously in terms of their efficiency and the degree of computerisation they have.” 

While a property’s planning history going back to 1963 is still technically required, to Prof Wylie’s knowledge no such records are kept by many local authorities, which leaves many purchasers in a quandary. 

“There has to be a moratorium to bypass this. There are ways in which you could simplify the process. But to introduce electronic conveyancing properly you have got make sure that all the bodies that hold information have it readily available and that their computer systems interact. If they crack that, there is no reason not to have it.” 

There are ways around the impasse of digital signatures, he suggests, and a faster conveyancing process would give an immediate economic boost. “I’m moderately hopeful,” he concludes. 

Mary Hallissey is a journalist at the Law Society Gazette.