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What are Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT) Searches? As part of the ‘Government’s Housing For All’ programme, a new annual tax called the Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT) was introduced under the Finance Act 2021, and is scheduled to come into practical effect on 1st February 2025. As part of a broader approach to tackling the prevailing housing crisis, the intended purpose of the tax was to discourage the hoarding and profiting from undeveloped yet residentially zoned land, and to concurrently stimulate the building of residential properties on said sites. As such, liability for this annually recurring tax (3% of

What are Rent Pressure Zone (RPZ) Searches? At a time of ever-increasing rental costs, and as part of a governmental approach to making rented accommodation generally more affordable, Rent Pressure Zones (RPZ) were initially introduced on 24 th December 2016, and have since been extended under the Residential Tenancies (No. 2) Act 2021. This special RPZ zoning was intended to identify areas where rents were highest and still rising. The regulations were intended, should a premises fall within an RPZ, to place certain upward-only restrictions on chargeable rents. Currently under the legislation, any private rented property in a RPZ had

What are Register of Shipping Searches? A division of the Department of Transport and operating under the Irish Maritime Administration (IMA), the Marine Survey Office (MSO) is responsible for port/ flag state (i.e. the jurisdiction under whose laws the vessel is registered or licensed) regulatory control in Ireland.  These duties and responsibilities as the maritime transport regulator include ‘…the safety, security, environmental protection and living and working conditions for vessels and ports in Ireland and Irish ships abroad’. However, one of the other functions of MSO Administration is the issuing of Vessel Certificates. As such, and as a function of

Intellectual Property – a brief understanding In as much as physical objects like land, houses, vehicles, and other goods can be owned by an individual or a legal entity, it is also the case that original creative processes or innovations can be owned.  Copyright aside, certain types of intellectual property (IP) still necessitate a formal application and evaluation process for ownership rights to be legally established. The ultimate intention of the registration of IP is to protect both the tangible financial rights and the intangible (reputational) value inherent in those novel assets.  The Intellectual Property Office of Ireland IPOI (previously

What is a Credit Union search in the context of a conveyance?  Credit Unions bear many similarities to Friendly Societies which are often characterised as associations of ‘mutual aid.’ Initially formed on a voluntary basis, friendly societies’ primary purpose was to ‘…safeguard members from debts arising from illness, death, or old age.’ Over time some Victorian friendly societies evolved into insurance companies, trade unions, industrial and provident societies, and various groups fostering specific activities or interests. Gradually, in their own way, credit unions would co-evolve within the spirit of the co-operative identity, i.e., the principles of ‘ ‘…self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality,

What are probate searches? Typically, when an individual passes away within the State, a procedure is initiated to grantsomeone the legal authority to manage the deceased person’s estate. This process iscommonly known as Probate, and its name has roots in the Latin words ‘probare’ or‘probatum,’ signifying the verb ‘to prove.’ Operating under the jurisdiction of the High Court, it is the Probate Office that facilitates thebestowing of the said legal authority. This ultimate sanction is provided through a documentcalled a Grant of Representation (i.e. Grants of Probate or Letters of Administration) whichderives from a series of stages that collectively constitute

The National Archives – A brief synopsis Born of a merging of the State Paper Office (SPO) (Founded in 1702 and holding the records of the various Lord Lieutenants of Ireland, 1542 to 1801) and the Public Record Office of Ireland (PROI) (Founded 1867) whose duties included ‘…collecting administrative, court and probate records…’, the new National Archives (NA) was opened on 1 June 1988.  On its inception under the National Archives Act 1986, it was purposed with the enduring conservation, indexing and making public of records of state, including legal, historical, and genealogical records.  These virtuous aims were entrusted to

What is an Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicle (ICAV) search? In order to respond to the above premised question, we must first ask ‘What is an ICAV?’  Operating under the European Commission’s regulatory framework for managing and selling mutual funds (i.e., financial products that aggregate assets from shareholders to invest in bonds, market instruments, stocks and other assets) Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicles (ICAVs) were first introduced by the Central Bank in March 2015. In doing so, ICAVs represented a new form of collective investment vehicle for Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) funds and Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) and