This Act may be cited as the Rural Banking and Finance Corporation Amendment Act 1982, and shall be read together with and deemed part of the Rural Banking and Finance Corporation Act 1974 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,—

The Board is hereby dissolved.

Every Marginal Lands Committee and Marginal Lands Panel established under the Act is hereby dissolved.

The position of Marginal Lands Director is hereby abolished.

Every appointment under section 11 of the Act is hereby revoked.

The enactments specified in the Schedule to this Act are hereby repealed.

All the property, estates, interests, rights, privileges, and powers of the Board (whether in its own behalf or on behalf of the Crown) in and in respect of every relevant loan, and in respect of all property, of whatsoever nature, against or over which any relevant security is secured or registered, and under any agreement under section 17 of the Act, are hereby vested, without conveyance, transfer, or assignment, in the Corporation, subject in each case to all liabilities, charges, obligations, trusts, covenants, and conditions affecting that loan, security, or agreement.

Every Registrar of Deeds, Registrar of the High Court, and District Registrar of Companies shall, without payment of any fee, do all such things, and make all such entries in his registers, as are necessary to give full effect to the vesting in the Corporation of the property, estates, interests, rights, privileges, and powers so vested by subsection (1) of this section.

Every District Land Registrar shall, without payment of any fee, in respect of land details of the persons having registered estates and interests in which are contained in his registers, register the Corporation as the proprietor of every estate and interest in land of which Her Majesty the Queen is registered as proprietor pursuant to a relevant security, and otherwise do all such things and make all such entries in his registers as are necessary to give full effect to the vesting in the Corporation of the property, estates, interests, rights, privileges, and powers so vested by subsection (1) of this section.

Notwithstanding subsection (2) and subsection (3) of this section or any provision in any Act to the contrary, no person making an entry in a register pursuant to either subsection shall be required to make that entry upon any duplicate original, duplicate, or outstanding copy of any document.

Every former member of the Board or of any Marginal Lands Committee, and every other person at any time engaged or employed in connection with the work of the Board or of any such committee, shall maintain and aid in maintaining the confidential nature of all matters relating to any application under the Act that came to his knowledge; and shall not communicate any such matters to any person except as may be permitted by the Corporation or for the purposes of carrying the principal Act into effect.

Notwithstanding section 5 of this Act, every application lawfully made under section 13 of the Act and not finally disposed of before the commencement of this Act may be dealt with as if—

Subject to subsection (3) of this section, the owner of any property that is subject to a relevant security shall not, without the written consent of the Corporation, transfer, lease, sublease, mortgage (otherwise than to the Crown or a department of State), or otherwise dispose of, any interest in that property.

For the purposes of subsection (2) of this section a variation of mortgage shall be deemed to be a mortgage, unless the variation is for the benefit of the mortgagor by extending the term of the mortgage or reducing the principal or rate of interest or otherwise howsoever.

Every agreement under section 17 of the Act that was in force immediately before the commencement of this Act shall continue in force according to its tenor.

Notwithstanding section 5 of this Act, the Director-General shall give to the Corporation all relevant documents requested by the Corporation relating to—

The Corporation, and any of its servants, shall, at all reasonable times, have free rights of ingress, egress, and regress in respect of any land that is for the time being subject to any relevant security.

As soon as is practicable after the commencement of this Act, the Director-General of Lands shall prepare and lay before Parliament a report on the operation of the Board under the Act since the end of the year to which the last report so laid under section 25 of the Act related.