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BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - LONG TITLE

An Act to amend the Law relating to Bills of Sale in Ireland.{1}
[11th August 1879]
Preamble rep. by SLR 1894

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 1
Short title.

1. This Act may be cited for all purposes as the Bills of Sale
(Ireland) Act, 1879.

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 2
Application of Act.

2. Commencement

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 3
Interpretation of terms.

3. This Act shall apply to every bill of sale executed on or
after the first day of November one thousand eight hundred and
seventy-nine (whether the same be absolute, or subject or not
subject to any trust) whereby the holder or grantee has power,
either with or without notice, and either immediately or at any
future time, to seize or take possession of any personal chattels
comprised in or made subject to such bill of sale.

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 4
1978 c.23

4. In this Act the following words and expressions shall have the
meanings in this section assigned to them respectively, unless there
be something in the subject or context repugnant to such
construction; (that is to say,)

The expression "bill of sale" shall include bills of sale,
assignments, transfers, declarations of trust without transfer,
inventories of goods with receipt thereto attached, or receipts for
purchase moneys of goods, and other assurances of personal chattels,
and also powers of attorney, authorities, or licenses to take
possession of personal chattels as security for any debt, and also
any agreement, whether intended or not to be followed by the
execution of any other instrument, by which a right in equity to
any personal chattels, or to any charge or security thereon, shall
be conferred, but shall not include the following documents; that is
to say, assignments for the benefit of the creditors of the person
making or giving the same, marriage settlements, transfers or
assignments of any ship or vessel or any share thereof, transfers
of goods in the ordinary course of business of any trade or
calling, bills of sale of goods in foreign parts or at sea, bills
of lading, India warrants, warehouse-keepers certificates, warrants or
orders for the delivery of goods, or any other documents used in
the ordinary course of business as proof of the possession or
control of goods, or authorising or purporting to authorise, either
by indorsement or by delivery, the possessor of such document to
transfer or receive goods thereby represented:

The expression "personal chattels" shall mean goods, furniture, and
other articles capable of complete transfer by delivery, and (when
separately assigned or charged) fixtures and growing crops, but shall
not include chattel interests in real estate, nor fixtures (except
trade machinery as hereinafter defined), when assigned together with
a freehold or leasehold interest in any land or building to which
they are affixed, nor growing crops when assigned together with any
interest in the land on which they grow, nor shares or interests
in the stock, funds, or securities of any government, or in the
capital or property of incorporated or joint stock companies, nor
choses in action, nor any stock or produce upon any farm or lands
which by virtue of any covenant or agreement or of the custom of
the country ought not to be removed from any farm where the same
are at the time of making or giving of such bill of sale:

Personal chattels shall be deemed to be in the "apparent possession"
of the person making or giving a bill of sale, so long as they
remain or are in or upon any house, mill, warehouse, building,
works, yard, land, or other premises occupied by him, or are used
and enjoyed by him in any place whatsoever, notwithstanding that
formal possession thereof may have been taken by or given to any
other person:

["Prescribed" means prescribed by rules of court made under section
55 of the Judicature (Northern Ireland) Act 1978.]

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 5
Certain instruments giving powers of distress to be subject to this
Act.

5. From and after the commencement of this Act trade machinery
shall for the purposes of this Act, be deemed to be personal
chattels, and any mode of disposition of trade machinery by the
owner thereof which would be a bill of sale as to any other
personal chattels shall be deemed to be a bill of sale within the
meaning of this Act.

For the purposes of this Act

"Trade machinery" means the machinery used in or attached to any
factory or workshop;

"Factory or workshop" means any premises on which any manual labour
is exercised by way of trade, or for purposes of gain, in or
incidental to the following purposes or any of them; that is to
say,

(a)In or incidental to the making any article or part of an
article; or

(b)In or incidental to the altering, repairing, ornamenting,
finishing, of any article; or

(c)In or incidental to the adapting for sale any article.

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 6
Fixtures or growing crops not to be deemed separately assigned when
the land passes by the same instrument.

6. Every attornment, instrument, or agreement, not being a mining
lease, whereby a power of distress is given or agreed to be given
by any person to any other person by way of security for any
present, future, or contingent debt or advance, and whereby any rent
is reserved or made payable as a mode of providing for the payment
of interest on such debt or advance, or otherwise for the purpose
of such security only, shall be deemed to be a bill of sale,
within the meaning of this Act, of any personal chattels which may
be seized or taken under such power of distress.

Provided, that nothing in this section shall extend to any mortgage
of any estate or interest in any land, tenement, or hereditament
which the mortgagee, being in possession, shall have demised to the
mortgagor as his tenant at a fair and reasonable rent.

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 7
Avoidance of certain duplicate bills of sale.

7. No fixtures or growing crops shall be deemed, under this Act,
to be separately assigned or charged by reason only that they are
assigned by separate words, or that power is given to sever them
from the land or building to which they are affixed, or from the
land on which they grow, without otherwise taking possession of or
dealing with such land or building, or land, if by the same
instrument any freehold or leasehold interest in the land or
building to which such fixtures are affixed, or in the land on
which such crops grow, is also conveyed or assigned to the same
persons or person.

The same rule of construction shall be applied to all deeds or
instruments, including fixtures or growing crops, executed before the
commencement of this Act and then subsisting and in force, in all
questions arising under any bankruptcy, arrangement with creditors,
liquidation, assignment for the benefit of creditors, or execution of
any process of any court, which shall take place or be issued
after the commencement of this Act.

S.8 rep. by 1883 c.7 s.15

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 9
Mode of registering bills of sale.

9. Where a subsequent bill of sale is executed within or on the
expiration of seven days after the execution of a prior unregistered
bill of sale, and comprises all or any part of the personal
chattels comprised in such prior bill of sale, then, if such
subsequent bill of sale is given as a security for the same debt
as is secured by the prior bill of sale, or for any part of such
debt, it shall, to the extent to which it is a security for the
same debt or part thereof, and so far as respects the personal
chattels or part thereof comprised in the prior bill, be absolutely
void unless it is proved to the satisfaction of the court having
cognizance of the case that the subsequent bill of sale was bona8
fide given for the purpose of correcting some material error in the
prior bill of sale, and not for the purpose of evading this Act.

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 10
Renewal of registration.

10. A bill of sale shall be attested and registered under this Act
in the following manner:

Subs.(1) rep. by SLR (NI) 1954

(2) Such bill, with every schedule or inventory thereto annexed or
therein referred to, and also a true copy of such bill and of
every such schedule or inventory, and of every attestation of the
execution of such bill of sale, together with an affidavit of the
time of such bill of sale being made or given, and of its due
execution and attestation, and a description of the residence and
occupation of the person making or giving the same (or in case the
same is made or given by any person under or in the execution of
any process, then a description of the residence and occupation of
the person against whom such process issued), and of every attesting
witness to such bill of sale, shall be presented to and the said
copy and affidavit shall be filed with the registrar within seven
clear days after the making or giving of such bill of sale, in
like manner as a warrant of attorney in any personal action given
by a trader is now by law required to be filed:

(3)If the bill of sale is made or given subject to any defeasance,
condition, or declaration of trust not contained in the body
thereof, such defeasance, condition, or declaration shall be deemed
to be part of the bill, and shall be written on the same paper
or parchment therewith before the registration, and shall be truly
set forth in the copy filed under this Act therewith and as part
thereof, otherwise the registration shall be void.

In case two or more bills of sale are given, comprising in whole
or in part any of the same chattels, they shall have priority in
the order of the date of their registration respectively as regards
such chattels.

A transfer or assignment of a registered bill of sale need not be
registered.

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 11
Form of register.

11. The registration of a bill of sale, whether executed before or
after the commencement of this Act, must be renewed once at least
every five years, and if a period of five years elapses from the
registration or renewed registration of a bill of sale without a
renewal or further renewal (as the case may be), the registration
shall become void: ....

The renewal of a registration shall be effected by filing with the
registrar an affidavit stating the date of the bill of sale and of
the last registration thereof, and the names, residences, and
occupations of the parties thereto as stated therein, and that the
bill of sale is still a subsisting security.

Every such affidavit may be in the form set forth in the Schedule
(A) to this Act annexed.

A renewal of registration shall not become necessary by reason only
of a transfer or assignment of a bill of sale.

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 12
As to registrar.

12. The registrar shall keep a book (in this Act called "the
register") for the purposes of this Act, and shall, upon the filing
of any bill of sale or copy under this Act, enter therein in the
form set forth in the second Schedule (B) to this Act annexed, or
in any other prescribed form, the name, residence, and occupation of
the person by whom the bill was made or given (or in case the
same was made or given by any person under or in the execution of
process, then the name, residence, and occupation of the person
against whom such process was issued, and also the name of the
person or persons to whom or in whose favour the bill was given),
and the other particulars shown in the said schedule or to be
prescribed under this Act, and shall number all such bills
registered in each year consecutively, according to the respective
dates of their registration.

Upon the registration of any affidavit of renewal the like entry
shall be made, with the addition of the date and number of the
last previous entry relating to the same bill, and the bill of
sale or copy originally filed shall be thereupon marked with the
number affixed to such affidavit of renewal.

The registrar shall also keep an index of the names of the
grantors of registered bills of sale with reference to entries in
the register of the bills of sale given by each such grantor.

Such index shall be arranged in divisions corresponding with the
letters of the alphabet, so that all grantors whose surnames begin
with the same letter (and no others) shall be comprised in one
division, but the arrangement within each such division need not be
strictly alphabetical.[

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 13
Rectification of register.

13. The Master (Queen's Bench and Appeals) or such other officer
serving the Supreme Court as the Lord Chief Justice may designate
shall be the registrar for the purposes of this Act.]

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 14
Memorandum of satisfaction on registered copy of bill of sale.

14. Any judge of the High Court, on being satisfied that the
omission to register a bill of sale or an affidavit of renewal
thereof within the time prescribed by this Act, or the omission or
mis-statement of the name, residence, or occupation of any person,
was accidental or due to inadvertence, may in his discretion order
such omission or mis-statement to be rectified by the insertion in
the register of the true name, residence, or occupation, or by
extending the time for such registration on such terms and
conditions (if any) as to security, notice by advertisement or
otherwise, or as to any other matter, as he thinks fit to direct.

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 15
Copies may be taken, &c.

15. Subject to and in accordance with any rules to be made under
and for the purposes of this Act, the registrar may order a
memorandum of satisfaction to be written upon any registered copy of
a bill of sale, upon the prescribed evidence being given that the
debt (if any) for which such bill of sale was made or given has
been satisfied or discharged.

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 16
Fees.

16. Any person shall be entitled to have an office copy or extract
of any registered bill of sale and affidavit of execution filed
therewith, or copy thereof, and of any affidavit filed therewith, if
any, or registered affidavit of renewal, upon paying for the same
at the like rate as for office copies of judgments of the High
Court, and any copy of a registered bill of sale, and affidavit
purporting to be an office copy thereof, shall, in all courts and
before all arbitrators or other persons, be admitted as prima8 facie
evidence thereof, and of the fact and date of registration as shown
thereon ....

S.17 rep. by 1946 c.13 (NI) s.16(3) sch.; 1978 c.23 s.122(2) sch.7
Pt.I

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 18
Fees.

18. There shall be paid and received in stamps the following fees,
viz.:

On filing a bill of sale < [5p]

On filing the affidavit of execution of a bill of sale < [5p]

On the affidavit used for the purpose of re-registering

a bill of sale (to include the fee for filing) < [12p][

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 19
1978 c.23

19. Section 116 of the Judicature (Northern Ireland) Act 1978 shall
apply to fees under this Act and such fees may be fixed in the
manner authorised by that section.]

S.20 rep. by 1883 c.7 s.15. S.21 rep. by 1978 c.23 s.122(2) sch.7
Pt.I

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 22
Saving.

22. When the time for registering a bill of sale expires on a
Sunday, or other day on which the registrar's office is closed, the
registration shall be valid if made on the next following day on
which the office is open.

BILLS OF SALE (IRELAND) ACT 1879 - SECT 23
Section 11.

23. ....

Provided that (except as is herein expressly mentioned with respect
to construction and with respect to renewal of registration) nothing
in this Act shall affect any bill of sale executed before the
commencement of this Act, and as regards bills of sale so executed
the Act hereby repealed shall continue in force.

Any renewal after the commencement of this Act of the registration
of a bill of sale executed before the commencement of this Act,
and registered under the Act hereby repealed, shall be made under
this Act in the same manner as the renewal of a registration made
under this Act.

I [A.B.] of do swear that a bill of sale, bearing date the day
of 18 [insert the date of the bill], and made between [insert the
names and descriptions of the parties in the original bill of
sale], and which said bill of sale [or, and a copy of which said
bill of sale, as the case may be] was registered on the day of
18 [insert date of registration], is still a subsisting security.

Sworn, &c.

whom process issued)