S. 6. (2.) If within that month an address is presented to the GENERAL the Queen by either House, seeking the disallowance of the ORDERS. S. 7. Effect of Order, or part thereof, it shall be lawful for Her Majesty, by 7. As long as any General Order under this Act is in operaOrder as to tion, the taxation of bills of costs of solicitors shall be regulated taxation. thereby. AGREE MENTS. S. 8. Power for solicitor and client to agree on form and amount of remuneration. AGREEMENTS. 8.-(1.) With respect to any business to which the foregoing provisions of this Act relate, whether any General Order under this Act is in operation or not, it shall be competent for a solicitor to make an agreement with his client, and for a client to make an agreement with his solicitor, before or after or in the course of the transaction of any such business, for the remuneration of the solicitor, to such amount and in such manner as the solicitor and the client think fit, either by a gross sum, or by commission or per-centage, or by salary, or otherwise; and it shall be competent for the solicitor to accept from the client, and for the client to give to the solicitor, remuneration accordingly.1 (2.) The agreement shall be in writing, signed by the person to be bound thereby or by his agent in that behalf.? (3.) The agreement may, if the solicitor and the client think fit, be made on the terms that the amount of the remuneration therein stipulated for either shall include or shall not include all or any disbursements made by the (a) Cf. 36 & 37 Vict. c. 66, s. 32. 1 solicitor in respect of searches, plans, travelling, stamps, fees, or other matters.3 (4.) The agreement may be sued and recovered on or impeached and set aside in like manner and on the like ground as an agreement not relating to the remuneration of a solicitor; and if, under any order for taxation of costs, such agreement being relied upon by the solicitor shall be objected to by the client as unfair or unreasonable, the taxing master or officer of the Court may inquire into the facts, and certify the same to the Court; and if, upon such certificate, it shall appear to the Court or judge that just cause has been shown either for cancelling the agreement, or for reducing the amount payable under the same, the Court or judge shall have power to order such cancellation or reduction, and to give all such directions necessary or proper for the purpose of carrying such order into effect, or otherwise consequential thereon, as to the Court or judge may seem fit. 1 SS. 8, 9, unlike SS. 2-7, are now in actual force, ante pp. 304, 305. S. 8 corresponds in a great measure with ss. 4-15, 33 & 34 Vict. c. 28; S. 8 (1) corresponds with the first part of s. 4, 33 & 34 Vict. c. 28, so far as that provision related to conveyancing business. Under the words in s. 4, 33 & 34 Vict. c. 28-"a solicitor may make an agreement in writing with his client "-it was held that a receipt for a sum of money signed by the solicitor alone did not constitute a good agreement, although there was evidence that the client had verbally acceded to the terms contained in such receipt, the Court being of opinion that no agreement would be valid within the statute unless signed by both client and solicitor (a). The present enactment is in terms similar to the latter part of s. 4 of the Statute of Frauds, and will, therefore, we apprehend, be satisfied by signature of the party to be charged. 3 The Act of 1870 enabled agreements to be made which would cover “dis. bursements," and provided that such agreements should exclude further claims not expressly excepted by the agreement. There is no similar exclusion in the Act of 1881. (a) Re Lewis; ex parte Munro, L. R. 1 Q. B. D. 724. 8. 8. AGREE MENTS. S. 8. GENERAL S. 9. Restriction on Solicitors Act, 1870. 33 & 34 Vict. c. 28, s. 4. 4 An agreement under the Act of 1870 could not be enforced by action, but only by petition or summons; this, however, must only be understood of so much of the agreement as relates to remuneration (a). S. 11 of the Act of 1870 expressly avoided agreements which exonerated solicitors from liability for negligence. There is no corresponding provision in the present statute. 9. The Attorneys and Solicitors' Act 1870, shall not apply to any business to which this Act relates. The Act of 1870 empowers a solicitor generally to make agreements as to all business, whether contentious or non-contentious; it is only in reference to non-contentious business in England that its effect is now restricted (cf. supra, SS. 2, 8). As regards contentious business the Act of 1870 had some special provisions; thus, the amount payable under an agreement for business done in an action was not to be paid until allowed by a taxing officer (b), and agreements savouring of champerty are expressly avoided (c). VENDOR AND PURCHASER ACT, 1874. S. 1. An Act to amend the Law of Vendor and Purchaser and further to simplify Title to Land. [17th August, 1874.] WHEREAS it is expedient to facilitate the transfer of land by means of certain amendments in the law of vendor and purchaser : Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: 1. In the completion of any contract of sale of land made substituted after the thirty-first day of December one thousand eight Forty years for sixty years as the root of title. hundred and seventy-four, and subject to any stipulation to the contrary in the contract, forty years shall be substituted as the period of commencement of title which a purchaser may require in place of sixty years, the present period of such commencement; nevertheless earlier title than forty years may be required in cases similar to those in which earlier title than sixty years may now be required.1 1 Cf. s. 3 (3) 44 & 45 Vict. c. 41 ante pp. 324, 325, and note ante pp. 327, 328. A condition that title should commence with a deed of a particular date and that no earlier or other title should be required or inquired into will not preclude a purchaser from insisting on an objection to the prior title accidentally disclosed by the vendor (a.) As to exclusion of statutory root of title cf. cases below cited (b.) With regard to conditions of sale generally, it is held that a condition is bad as misleading--(1) if it requires the purchaser to assume what the vendor knows to be false, or (2) if it alleges that the state of the title is not accurately known when in fact it is so known, and it will be no answer to a purchaser's objection to such a condition that an actually good and marketable title can be otherwise shown. On such an objection being established by a purchaser, the vendor will be given the option of a reference to chambers to ascertain if a good holding title can be made according to the condition or of a recission of the contract on the terms of repayment of deposit with interest and costs (c). 8. 1. S. 2. Rules for 2. In the completion of any such contract as aforesaid, and subject to any stipulation to the contrary in the contract, the regulating obligations and rights of vendor and purchaser shall be regu- and rights lated by the following rules; that is to say, First. Under a contract to grant or assign a term of years, whether derived or to be derived out of a freehold or Second. Recitals, statements, and descriptions of facts, (a) Smith v. Robinson, L. R. 13 Ch. D. 148. (b) Harnett v. Baker, L. R. 20 Eq. 50; Rosenberg v. Cook, L. R. 8 Q. B. D. 162; Jones v. Clifford, L. R. 3 (c) In re Banister; Broad v. Munton, obligations of vendor and purchaser. S. 2. matters, and parties contained in deeds, instruments, Acts of Parliament, or statutory declarations, twenty years old at the date of the contract, shall, unless and except so far as they shall be proved to be inaccurate, be taken to be sufficient evidence of the truth of such facts, matters, and descriptions.2 Third. The inability of the vendor to furnish the purchaser with a legal covenant to produce and furnish copies of documents of title shall not be an objection to title in case the purchaser will, on the completion of the contract, have an equitable right to the production of such docu ments. Fourth. Such covenants for production as the purchaser can and shall require shall be furnished at his expense, and the vendor shall bear the expense of perusal and execution on behalf of and by himself, and on behalf of and by necessary parties other than the purchaser (a). Fifth. Where the vendor retains any part of an estate to documents of title relate he shall be entitled to which any retain such documents. 1 Cf. ss. 3 (1), 13, 44 & 45 Vict. c. 41 ante pp. 324, 356, and note ante p. 327. The rule that a lessee has constructive notice of his lessor's title has not been altered by this provision, nor semble by ss. 3 (1), 13, 44 & 45 Vict. c. 41; but a lessee is now in the same position with regard to notice as if he had, before the Act, stipulated not to inquire into the lessor's title. A purchaser or lessee having notice of a deed forming part of the chain of title of his vendor or lessor has constructive notice of the contents of such deed, and is not protected from the consequences of not looking at the deed; even by the most express representation on the part of the vendor or lessor that it contains no restrictive covenants or anything in any way affecting the title (b). (a) Cf. 44 & 45 Vict. c. 41 s. 3 (6) ante, pp. 325, 326, and note ante, p328; lb. s. 9 ante pp. 343-347. (b) Patman v. Harland, L. R. 17 Ch. D. 353; Thornwell v. Johnson, 50 L. J. Ch. 641. |