In common law and statutory law, a life estate is the ownership of immovable property for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms, it is an estate in real property that ends at death when ownership of the property may revert to the original owner, or it may pass to another person. The owner of a life estate is called a "life tenant".
English trust law concerns the protection of assets, usually when they are held by one party for another's benefit. Trusts were a creation of the English law of property and obligations, and share a subsequent history with countries across the Commonwealth and the United States. Trusts developed when claimants in property disputes were dissatisfied with the common law courts and petitioned the King for a just and equitable result. On the King's behalf, the Lord Chancellor developed a parallel justice system in the Court of Chancery, commonly referred as equity. Historically, trusts have mostly been used where people have left money in a will, or created family settlements, charities, or some types of business venture. After the Judicature Act 1873, England's courts of equity and common law were merged, and equitable principles took precedence. Today, trusts play an important role in financial investment, especially in unit trusts and in pension trusts. Although people are generally free to set the terms of trusts in any way they like, there is a growing body of legislation to protect beneficiaries or regulate the trust relationship, including the Trustee Act 1925, Trustee Investments Act 1961, Recognition of Trusts Act 1987, Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, Trustee Act 2000, Pensions Act 1995, Pensions Act 2004 and Charities Act 2011.
An equitable interest is an "interest held by virtue of an equitable title or claimed on equitable grounds, such as the interest held by a trust beneficiary". The equitable interest is a right in equity that may be protected by an equitable remedy. This concept exists only in systems influenced by the common law tradition, such as New Zealand, England, Canada, Australia, and the United States.
Lloyds Bank plc v Rosset[1990] UKHL 14 is an English land law, trusts law and matrimonial law case. It specifically deals with the translation into money of physical contributions from a cohabitee or spouse, under which its principles have been largely superseded.
Gissing v Gissing [1970] UKHL 3 is an English land law and trust law case dealing with constructive trusts arising in relationships between married couple. It may no longer represent good law, since the decisions of Stack v Dowden and Jones v Kernott.
Bruton v London and Quadrant Housing Trust[1999] UKHL 26 is an English land law case that examined the rights of a 'tenant' in a situation where the 'landlord', a charitable housing association had no authority to grant a tenancy, but in which the 'tenant' sought to enforce the duty to repair on the association implied under landlord and tenant statutes. The effect of the case is to create the relationship of de facto landlord and tenant between the parties.
DHN Food Distributors Ltd v Tower Hamlets London Borough Council [1976] 1 WLR 852 is a UK company law case where, on the basis that a company should be compensated for loss of its business under a compulsory acquisition order, a group was recognised as a single economic entity. It stands as a liberal example of when UK courts may lift the veil of incorporation of a company.
Street v Mountford[1985] UKHL 4 is an English land law case from the House of Lords. It set out principles to determine whether someone who occupied a property had a tenancy, or only a licence. This mattered for the purpose of statutory tenant rights to a reasonable rent, and had a wider significance as a lease had "proprietary" status and would bind third parties.
Cobbe v Yeoman's Row Management Ltd[2008] UKHL 55 is a House of Lords case in English land law and relates to proprietary estoppel in the multi-property developer context. The court of final appeal awarded the project manager £150,000 on a quantum meruit basis for unjust enrichment because Yeoman's Row had received the benefit of his services without paying for that. The court refused to find or acknowledge a binding contract, prior arrangement with a third party or promise, overturning a £2m award on the basis of a possible lien arising from a promise over the property. The court found a non-binding agreement in principle, entirely subject to the owner's final say to take into account for example their view of the market; this was the basis on the facts on which the parties were proceeding.
Williams & Glyn's Bank v Boland [1980] is a House of Lords judgment in English land and trusts law on an occupier's potentially overriding interests in a home.
Ashburn Anstalt v Arnold[1988] EWCA Civ 14 is an English land law case decided by the Court of Appeal. It establishes that in English law rent is not required for the creation of a tenancy. However its judgement on the requirements on certainty of duration of a lease has been discredited by Prudential Assurance Co v London Residuary Body2 AC 386
Unregistered land in English law is land that has not been registered with HM Land Registry. Under the residual principles of English land law, for unregistered land proof of title is based upon historical title deeds and a registry for certain charges under the Land Charges Act 1972.
Hussey v Palmer [1972] EWCA Civ 1 is an English trusts law case of the Court of Appeal. It concerned the equitable remedy of constructive trusts. It invokes the equitable maxim, "equity regards the substance and not the form."
Errington v Wood[1951] EWCA Civ 2 is an English contract law and English land law judicial decision of the Court of Appeal concerning agreement and the right to specific performance of an assurance that is relied on.
English land law is the law of real property in England and Wales. Because of its heavy historical and social significance, land is usually seen as the most important part of English property law. Ownership of land has its roots in the feudal system established by William the Conqueror after 1066, and with a gradually diminishing aristocratic presence, now sees a large number of owners playing in an active market for real estate.
Bristol & West Building Society v Henning [1985] EWCA Civ 6 is an English land law case that holds a person can consent to give up the right to an overriding interest in land, that will bind third parties, such as banks, that purchase a property. Although dealing with unregistered land, it is equally applicable in the case of registered land and now falls under the Land Registration Act 2002.
Chhokar v Chhokar [1984] FLR 313 is an English land law case concerning constructive trusts law and widening the natural meaning of "actual occupation". The facts of the case showed an intention to do a woman out of her occupational interest in a matrimonial home, as the new co-owner buying his share from the husband knew of her situation from the outset and wished to resell the property. The court confirmed in these exact circumstances her interest was overriding at the time when she was in hospital and it was a constructive trust.
Bannister v Bannister [1948] 2 All ER 133 is an English trusts law case, upholding a constructive trust of land against a relative who took title to the land, with a promise back to the transferor she could remain in her cottage for life.
National Provincial Bank Ltd v Ainsworth [1965] is an English land law and family law case, concerning the quality of a person's interest in a home when people live together, as well as licenses in land.
Registered land in English law accounts for around 88 per cent of the total land mass. Since 1925, English land law has required that proprietary interests in land be registered, except in cases where it is necessary to protect social or family interests that cannot reasonably be expected to be registered. English law also runs a parallel system for around 12 per cent of land that remains unregistered.
