The Hon. Attorney General Rhondalee Braithwaite-Knowles OBE QC is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr Nicholas Arculus to the office of Registrar of Lands. Mr. Arculus succeeds former Registrar of Lands, Ms Brandie Anderson, following an open competition for the post.
Mr Arculus is an English qualified lawyer with a long record of public service. Mr Arculus has relocated from the Isle of Man where he served for five years as Registrar for the purposes of the Land Registration Act. Mr Arculus moved to the Isle of Man (a Crown Dependency) from the Falkland Islands (an overseas territory) where he served as Crown Counsel. Mr Arculus is originally from Peterborough, UK where he qualified as a solicitor following education at Oxford University and the Inns of Court School of Law.
Commenting on his appointment Mr Arculus said:
“I am honoured to be appointed to serve as Registrar of Lands and Assistant Collector of Stamp Duty with the Turks and Caicos Island Government.
It is the ambition of all Land Registries to achieve full registration. The Turks and Caicos Islands are famous within Land Registry circles in the Commonwealth for having been fully registered for over half a century and this is a testament to the fine traditions of the TCIG public service.
The Land Registry serves the people of the Islands and is a public register as opposed to a Government register. I am grateful to the support the Hon Attorney General and the Commissioner of Land provide to the Land Registry in delivering its existing services and to their commitment to facilitating the delivery of improvements to the operations and the accessibility of the Register of Title under this administration.”
The Hon. Attorney General, in extending her welcome to Mr Arculus said:
“I am very pleased with the appointment of Mr Arculus as the new Registrar of Lands.
Mr Arculus is an experienced public service lawyer with exemplary experience with land and deed registration in several relevant jurisdictions. His work in promoting transparency and access to the Land Register in the Isle of Man is an example of something that we would like to emulate to ensure ever greater transparency and to improve efficiency within the Land Registry here as part of the government’s e-Government programme.
Mr Arculus now heads up an excellent team at the Land Registry but will face a challenging task in delivering improvements as the Registry continues to recover from the disruption of storm damage and of the pandemic which has created unique difficulties for the Land Registry.
I want to publicly thank Toni-Ann Foster and Naomi Been for their stellar leadership during the long period of vacancy in the Registrar of Lands post. Working with their hard working small team, they have kept the service delivery standards high.”
The Hon. Attorney General further stated, “Mr Arculus’ experience will be invaluable to lead the Land Registry through a period of major transformation, particularly where the Land Registry will become an early model of the government’s e-Government programme”.
