LAND TRANSFER

1. This Proclamation may be cited as the Kandyan Land Transfer Proclamation.

2. We having taken into our consideration the expediency of settling the rights of purchasers of land in the Kandyan provinces on a footing which shall give them an immediate and permanent interest in their property, and induce them to improve the same, which the practice that has obtained in some of the said provinces of allowing the seller to repurchase the land at any time in his life is evidently calculated to prevent: Do therefore proclaim and enact, that from and after the publication of these presents all sales of land made in writing according to the provisions of our Proclamation * of the twenty-eighth day of October, One thousand Eight hundred and Twenty, in the Kandyan provinces shall be final and conclusive, and neither the seller nor his or her heirs shall have any peculiar right to repurchase the same, unless an express stipulation reserving such privilege shall be inserted in the deed of sale.

3. Such reservation when made in the deed of sale shall not be valid for any longer period than three years from the date of the said deed ; and that the person who wished to exercise this right of repurchase shall pay to the person to whom he or she sold the land not only the original consideration but also all expenses incurred for increasing the value of the property, the amount of * Repealed by Ordinance No. 7 of 1834, itself repealed by Ordinance No. 7 of 1840. which will, in case of any dispute, be ascertained by appraisement on application to and under the sanction of the court in whose jurisdiction the land lies.

4. And in respect to sales of land of a date prior to these presents, we do hereby order that no privilege of purchase shall in any part of these provinces be considered to attach to the seller unless he or she shall record his or her claim to the same in the court of the nearest Agent of Government within six months from this date, and such privilege shall then only be competent to such seller within the term of three years from this date, and upon the conditions in the preceding clause contained.

5. And no right of repurchase shall be considered to vest in the heirs of the seller, but the privilege is confined to him or herself personally.