Certified Folio for Properties in Malahide, County Dublin

Purchasing a house on former demesne land
Much of the modern housing here occupies ground released from the castle estate, and covenants imposed when that land was sold still appear in Part III. A purchaser's solicitor will want them certified before giving advice.

Lending secured on coastal property
Banks financing purchases with estuary or sea frontage require certified title evidence, particularly where the registered extent and the foreshore boundary need to be understood.

Administering a Fingal estate
Executors dealing with a Malahide house use the Certified Folio to establish the deceased's registered ownership for the Probate Office and for institutions holding assets.

Buying an apartment near the village
Apartment schemes involve a parent folio, individual unit folios and a management company title. Certified evidence identifies precisely which registered title attaches to the unit.

Acquiring land beside the estuary
Ground adjoining Broadmeadow sits next to protected habitat. Certified evidence settles the title position first, leaving designation to be pursued as a separate enquiry.

Refinancing a business in the village core
Retail and hospitality premises around the main street are regularly offered as security, and lenders assessing them look for certified title evidence.

Resolving a right of way to the shore
Access routes to the water serving older Malahide properties were sometimes established by long use. Certified confirmation of Part III distinguishes registered rights from custom.

Malahide's registered titles carry the imprint of a single great landholding. The Talbot family held the castle and its surrounding demesne for something near eight hundred years, until the estate passed into public ownership in the 1970s and the parkland became a public demesne under Fingal ownership. Land released from that estate and from adjoining holdings over the twentieth century underlies a substantial share of the housing here, and the covenants imposed at the point of sale — restricting use, controlling building lines, sometimes governing what may be erected on a boundary — were registered and remain on the folios today. They are live burdens rather than historical curiosities, and a purchaser planning an extension will meet them.

The estuary shapes everything on the northern and western edges. Broadmeadow and the water around it carry conservation designations of European standing, which restrict development on adjoining land severely. None of that protection is registrable. A certified folio for a site beside the estuary confirms ownership, class of title and registered burdens, and is entirely silent on habitat designation, which is administered under separate legislation and must be checked with the planning authority.

The coast raises its own question. Property running to the marina, the strand or the estuary meets the foreshore, and ground below the high water mark does not ordinarily form part of a private registered title. Owners frequently assume their boundary continues to the water; the folio and its filed plan are where that assumption is tested.

The modern layer follows the general Dublin pattern, with apartment schemes and estate developments producing parent folios, unit folios and management company titles over common areas.

Beneath it all, compulsory first registration reached County Dublin only on 1 June 2011, so older Malahide houses that had stayed in one family were commonly Registry of Deeds title until comparatively recently.

Several Malahide questions need more than the Certified Folio. Where the registered extent is genuinely at issue — on estuary frontage, at the marina, or where a plot is being divided — a Certified Map must accompany it. Where a demesne covenant or a right of way requires construing rather than noting, obtain the registered instrument as an Instrument Copy. Conservation designation around Broadmeadow is a matter for the planning authority, and foreshore interests sit outside the register. In an apartment scheme, the parent folio and management company title need examining alongside the unit folio.

Delivery time:

The Certified Folio is prepared as a certified hard copy and posted out to you. Its authority rests on the seal applied by the Property Registration Authority, which is why it comes in physical form rather than as a file.

The copy certifies the register as at the date it bears. Where a Certified Map, Instrument Copy or standard Folio Search is also needed for the same Malahide property, they can be ordered alongside it.