SHORT DEEDS.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
Edinburgh, 1911s May 1846. Sin—My attention has been particularly called to the inconclusiveness of the arguments used by your correspondent "A Conveyancer," in his last letter, while attempting to prove that short deeds, authorized by act of Parliament, would re- main, in most cases, a dead letter, by what has recently come under my own no- tice. Some months since an Act to facilitate the Transmission and Extinction of Heritable Securities for Debt in Scotland was passed; one effect of which is to substitute for a deed of some ten or fifteen pages of stamped paper, a short form of a few lines, and to do away entirely with the cumbrous instrument of aasine, and the absurd solemnity of going to the lands over which the mortgage extends, to take infeftmene As an instance of the working of this act, in as far as regards expense, and its thus giving conveyancers a motive for neglecting it, I may mention that I recently lent 11,000/. on a conveyance to an old mortgage, the expense of completing which, under the new act was, as far as my charges were concerned, about 20/Jess than under the old system; besides the saving on the account of the borrower's own solicitor for revising the deeds. By the act it is left optional to adopt the old forms if parties choose, but on inquiring at the Keeper of the Record, where the conveyances are registered, he intormed me that in no case that he knew of had the old forms been used since the act passed. On mentioning the diminution of professional emolument carried by the act to an old writer to the signet, the other day, his remark was, the profession and the public have both cause to rejoice at the change, deeds being now so much simplified that the risk of error is reduced to next to nothing; the only 'unties, added he, who need regret the old forms, are the clerks who fattened on the large engrossing-fees of the useless deeds.
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