Rule 159 – Inspection of filed documents and obtaining copies thereof

 (1) The registered owner of property and any person authorised by such owner, or by an order of the court or by these Rules, but no other person, may inspect a document filed in the Registry on a dealing or transaction with the property of the owner. 

(2) Any person who would be entitled to inspection of a document relating to property, if its ownership was not registered under the Act, and the document was in the possession of the person by law entitled to the custody thereof, shall be entitled to inspect the document, if filed in the Registry. 

(3) An affidavit of judgment deposited in the Registry pursuant to the Judgment Mortgage Ireland Act, 1850, as amended by the Act, or an application for registration of a judgment mortgage under Rule 110 may be inspected by any person so long as notice of its deposit or the entry of the judgment mortgage is uncancelled in a register. 

(4) A memorandum of a lis pendens, bond, recognisance or inquisition filed in the Registry may be inspected by any person so long as the entry relative to it remains uncancelled in a register. 

(5) An application, assent, affidavit, or transfer, made by a personal representative of a deceased owner of property that vested in the personal representative may be inspected by a devisee or other person, except a creditor, having an interest in the property under the owner’s will, or, where the owner died intestate, by a person in whom a beneficial interest in the property devolved on the intestacy, or by a person who satisfies the Authority that he/she is the successor in title of one of such persons. 

(6) An instrument filed in the Registry under Rule 130(5) may be inspected by the person by whom it was lodged or by any person who satisfies the Authority that he/she is entitled to the benefit of a right created by the instrument. 

(7) An instrument filed in the Registry under Rule 46 may be inspected by any person who satisfies the Authority that he/she is the owner or person(s) entitled to be the owner of an unregistered servient tenement property, over which a right was registered as appurtenant to a dominant tenement property under Section 49A of the Act, on the production of such proofs as may be directed by the Authority. 

(8) Any person entitled to inspect a document filed in the Registry may obtain a copy of it. 

(9) The Authority may, in special circumstances and on such terms as it shall think fit, permit a person to inspect or obtain a copy of, a document filed in the Registry. 

(10) An application to inspect or obtain a copy under this rule shall be made in Form 96. 

(11) Before allowing inspection of a document by a person claiming inspection under Rule 159, the Authority may make such inquiries and give such notices as it may think fit. Notice under this rule shall be in Form 97.