The acts were modelled on the legislation that created the Encumbered Estates' Court that allowed indebted Irish estates to be sold following the great famine of the 1840s. The Irish act came into force in 1849 and by July 1853, 3.5 million acres of land had been sold, creditors repaid according to the rulings of an independent tribunal, and estates purchased with a Parliamentary title guaranteed to be free of encumbrances.