NEW ZEALAND COMPANY'S LAND CONVEYANCES ACT.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 466, 19 January 1850, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND COMPANY'S LAND CONVEYANCES ACT.

Whereas her present Majesty, by her Royal Letters Patent bearing date the twelfth day of February, in the iourth year of her reign, grained and ordained that certain persons therein named and described should be and constitute a body corporate, with perpetual succession and a common seal, by the name of the New Zealand Company, for the purpose of purchasing and acquiring, settling, improving, cultivating, letting, selling, granting, alienating, mortgaging, charging, or otherwise dealing with and making a profit of lands, tenements, and hereditaments within her Majesty's colony of New Zealand and its dependencies, and of laying out settlements and towns, and for the other purposes therein set forth ; and by her Royal Letters Patent, bearing dat? the fourth da, of August in the seventh year of her reign, extended the powers in the said first mentioned Letters Patent contained : And whereas by an Act of Parliament passed in the session of Parliament holden in the ninth and tenth years of the reign of her present Majesty, intituled an Act to grant certain powers to the New Zealand Company, further powers were granted to the said Company, and special provisions made for facilitating the convepance of lands in the said colony then contracted to be sold or thereafter to be contracted to be sold by the-aaid Company : And whereas 'by an Act of Parliament passed in the session of Parliament holden in the tenth and eleventh years of the reign of her present Majesty, intituled an Act to promote colonisation in New Zealand,' and to authorise a loan to the New Zealand Company, all the demesne lands of the Crown in the Province of New Munster, in New Zealand, and all the estate and right of her Majesty therein, or power and authority over the same or any part thereof, were, from and immediately after passing of the said now recited Act, until the fifth day of July, One thousand eight hundred and fifty, and during such further time as shall be directed by Parliament, vested in the New Zealand Company, in trust for the purposes and subject to the provisions in the same Act contained ; it was by the same. Act enacted, that during such period all the rights, powers, and authorities of her Majesty in reference to the same might be exercised and administered by the said Company in such manner in all respects, subject to the restrictions therein contained, as to the said Company should seem best fitted to promote the efficient colonisation of New Zealand and the welfare of the colonists thereof : And whereas it is expedient, for the better < promotion of the colonisation of New Zealand and for the more effectual exercise of the~several powers and authorities vested in the said Company, tbat means should be provided to enable the execution of Deeds of Conveyance and other legal instruments in New Zealand by and on behalf of the said Company and that other provisions should be made to facilitate the interchange of property in the colony : May it therefore please your Majesty that it may be enacted, and 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, that it shall be lawful for the aaid Company, by any deed or instrument in writing under their corporate seal, from time to time to constitute and appoint any person to be, while* actually within the colony of New Zealand or its dependencies, and for such limited period (if any) as the said Company may think fit, the attornies of the said Company to make and execute, in the name and on behalf of the said Company, grants, leases, conveyances and any other deeds or instruments whatsoever, of, ami in relation to any of the Lands and Property in the said colony of New Zealand or its dependencies now belonging to or hereafter to belong tp the said Company, or over or in respect to which the said Company now has or hereafter may have any disposing or other power or authority whatsoever, subject nevertheless (so far as the same may be applicable) to the restrictions contained in the recited acts, and from time to time as occasion may require, and as to the said Company may seem meet, to revoke any such deed or instrument under the corporate seal of the said Company as aforesaid, and to make any other such deed or instrument for the like purpose, which grants, leases, conveyances, and other deeds and instruments to be made and executed by such attorneys shall be under the signature of such attorneys, and under such seal as hereinafter mentioned. 11. That "it shall be lawful for the said Company to appoint and commit to the custody of the attorneys for the time being constituted and appointed as aforesaid a seal for the purpose of making and executing such grants, leases, conveyances, and other deeds and instruments as aforesaid, and such seal from time to time, to break, alter or renew as to the said Company may seem meet ; and every grant, lease, or conveyance, and other deed and instrument to be made and executed in manner aforesaid by such attornies shall be as valid and effectual in law, to all intents and purposes whatsoever, as if the same had been duly made and executed by the said Ccmpany without the intervention of such attornies. 111. That all grants, leases, conveyances, and other deeds and instiuments signed or purporting to be sigued by such attorneys as aforesaid, and sealed or purporting to be sealed with the seal for the time being committed to such attorneys, shall be prima facie evidence not only of the appointment and continuance in office of the attorneys under whose signature the same shall be or purport to be made, but also of their signatures thereto, and the due sealing thereof with the seal committed to such attorneys, and that it shall be the duty of all courts of justice, justices, and others, as well within as without any of her Majesty's colonies, to receive the same as such prima facie evidence. IV. — That no less than two persons shall be appointed such attornies as aforesaid by any deed or instrument, and that if any deed or instrument more than two persons are appointed, any two of the persons so appointed, whether they alone of the persons so appointed shall have accepted or shall continue in office or not, shall (unless the contrary be provided by any such deed or instrument) be as fully competent to act in all respects as the whole body of persons thereby appointed. Y. That, for all purposes respecting registration in the said colony or its dependencies, any deed, conveyance, or other instrument, and any memorial thereof,- sealed or purporting to be sealed with the seal of the said Company, shall be sufficient evidence of the due execution of such deed, conveyance, or other instrument and memorial by the said Company ; and no further evidence or verification of the signature of the Secretary of the said Company or other person or persons who shall attest the sealing of such deed, conveyance, or other instrument or memorial, shall be required for the purpose of such registry, any law, ordinance, or custom now or hereafter to be in force in New Zealand notwithstanding. VI. Thtt this act shall extend to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and also to her Majesty's colonies. VII. That this act shall l»e deemed a Public Act. VIII. That this act may be amended or repealed by any act to be passed in this present session of Parliament.