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.
Because land can serve multiple uses, for many people, and because its fixed nature means that its owner may not always be visible, a system of registration came to be seen as essential at the start of the 20th century. From the Land Registry Act 1862 which created a body where people could voluntarily register, [1] a succession of government reports and piecemeal reform finally culminated in a unified, compulsory registration system with the Land Registration Act 1925. [2] Its proponents argued that a registration system would increase land's marketability, and make its transfer as fluid as the registration system of company shares. Theodore Ruoff, Chief Registrar from 1963, said the main three functions the register served was (1) to mirror ownership interests in land (2) to curtain off minor, or equitable interests that could be bypassed (or "overreached") in the land conveyance business, and (3) to provide insurance through Registrar funds to anyone who lost property as a result of register defects. [3] The ideal goal was thus to ensure that a comprehensive set of people whose interests had priority in a given real estate would be reflected on the register. With the Land Registration Act 2002, which recast the old law, the Registry has focused on "e-conveyancing". Under sections 91 to 95, electronic registration counts as deeds, and aims to replace the paper filing for the 21st century.
Four main ways of acquiring land are through a gift, trust, succession and by contract, all of which involve express or at least presumed consent. In the case of an ordinary gift during a person's life, the Law of Property Act 1925 section 52(1) requires a deed (itself defined in the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 section 1) before any transfer is effective. Subsequently, a transfer must be registered. The Land Registration Act 2002 section 27(2) makes registration compulsory for all transfers of land, leases over seven years and any charges. [4] Under LRA 2002 section 27, the consequence of a failure to register one's interest is that it will not bind another person in law who is transferred the property and does register. If the transfer of land takes place through a will, the Wills Act 1837 section 9 requires in similar terms that the will be signed in writing and have two witnesses. The beneficiary under the will must then take steps to register the interest in land in her name. In the case of a person who dies without leaving a will, their property, including land will succeed in passing by operation of law to the next of kin, or in the case of jointly owned property in a joint tenancy, to the co-owner/s.
In all situations, the requirement of formality is thought to improve the quality of people's consent. It has been reasoned, most notably by Lon Fuller, that going through the laborious motions of formality induces people to truly consider whether they wish to make a transfer. It also provides evidence of the transaction, and makes the threshold of a transaction's enforceability simple to determine. [5] This is most seen in the case of a contract. If an interest in land is the subject of a contract, the law isolates three steps. First, the sale will take place, which according to LPMPA 1989 section 2 may only occur with signed writing (though by section 2(5) and the Law of Property Act 1925, section 54(2) leases under 3 years can be made without). Second, technically the transfer must take place under Law of Property Act 1925, section 52(1) by a deed (though there is no reason why this cannot be combined with step 1, by using a deed for the sale!). Third, the land must be registered for the legal interest to take effect under LRA 2002 sections 27 to 30.
Reflecting the social use of land, the priority system of land registration and the Register's record of all interests in land has made significant exceptions for informal methods of acquiring rights, and especially equitable interests, in land. Under the Land Registration Act 2002 sections 27 to 30, an interest in land that is registered (for instance, freehold ownership, a long lease, or a mortgage) will take priority to all other interests that come later, or are not entered on the register. The first registered interest in time prevails. Yet under LRA 2002 Schedule 3, a series of exceptions, or "overriding interests" are listed. Under Schedule 3, paragraph 1, any lease that is less than seven years need not be registered, and will still bind other parties. The reason is to strike a balance between an owner who may well keep hold of land for a long period, and a person who may be renting as a home. Most socially significant, under Schedule 3, paragraph 2 (formerly Land Registration Act 1925 s 70(1)(g) the interest of a person who is in "actual occupation" need not be entered on the register, but will still bind later registered interests. This rule was said to be necessary to prevent the social right to a home being "lost in the welter of registration". [6] It is most used in favour of people, typically a spouse in a family home whose name is not on the title deeds, who have not registered an interest because the law has recognised they have acquired a right - not through a formal, or express contract, or gift - but by their contributions, or their reliance on another person's assurances. If such a person is in "actual occupation", then their informally acquired interest (usually through "constructive trust", which recognises their contributions of money or work toward family life) will bind parties who acquire interests later on.
"Anyone who lends money on the security of a matrimonial home nowadays ought to realise that the wife may have a share in it. He ought to make sure that the wife agrees to it, or to go to the house and make inquiries of her. It seems to me utterly wrong that a lender should turn a blind eye to the wife's interest or the possibility of it - and afterwards seek to turn her and the family out - on the plea that he did not know she was in actual occupation. If a bank is to do its duty, in the society in which we live, it should recognise the integrity of the matrimonial home. It should not destroy it by disregarding the wife's interest in it - simply to ensure that it is paid the husband's debt in full - with the high interest rate now prevailing. We should not give monied might priority over social justice."
Lord Denning MR in Williams & Glyn's Bank v Boland [1979] Ch 312
In a leading case, Williams & Glyn's Bank v Boland [7] Mr Boland had had trouble repaying his bank for a loan he used on his building company. The loan was secured on his Beddington house, where he lived with Mrs Boland. However, Mrs Boland had not consented to the mortgage agreement. She was not registered on the home's title deeds, but she had made significant financial contributions to the home. Despite Templeman J at first instance saying Mrs Boland only occupied the house through her husband, the Court of Appeal, and the House of Lords both agreed that Mrs Boland actually did occupy her home, and that her interest bound the bank. Later cases have shown the test for actual occupation must be purposively, and liberally determined, according to the claimant's social circumstance. So in Chhokar v Chhokar a lady who had been beaten and attacked by her estranged husband's friends to scare her from her Southall home, and who was at the time of her home being registered in hospital having Mr Chhokar's child, was still in actual occupation. This meant that because she had contributed to the home's purchase price, she was entitled to stay. Her interest bound, and took priority to, later registered interests. Under LRA 2002 Schedule 3, paragraph 2, only if a person is asked about their interest, and they say nothing, or if it is not obvious on a reasonably careful inspection, would a person in actual occupation lose to a registered party.
It has also been held that someone who occupies a house and has an interest in the home might have impliedly consented to taking subject to another party's later interest. In both Bristol & West Building Society v Henning [8] and Abbey National Building Society v Cann [9] a couple purchased a home with the assistance of a loan from a building society, which was secured by mortgage on the property. In both cases the court held that because the buyers could not have got the house without the loan, there had been tacit consent by all to the bank taking priority, and no gap in time before registration when the spouse could have been said to be in prior actual occupancy.
Originally to facilitate transfers of land, the Law of Property Act 1925 sections 2 and 27 make provision so that people with equitable interests in land may not assert them against purchasers of the land if there are two trustees. If a person has an equitable interest in a property, the law allows this interest to be detached from the property, or "overreached" and reattached to money given in exchange for land, so long as the exchange took place by at least two trustees. This was, however, applied not for the purpose of trading property by professional trustees, but against homeowners in City of London Building Society v Flegg . [10] Here two parents, Mr and Mrs Flegg, had given their home to their children, who in turn mortgaged the property and defaulted on the loan. The House of Lords held that because the words of the statute were fulfilled, and the purchase money for the interest in the property (i.e. the loan that the children squandered) had been paid to two trustees, the Fleggs had to give up possession. Lastly, it is possible to lose an interest in land, even if registered, through adverse possession by another person after 12 years under the Limitation Act 1980 sections 15 to 17.
A mortgage is a legal instrument which is used to create a security interest in real property held by a lender as a security for a debt, usually a loan of money. A mortgage in itself is not a debt, it is the lender's security for a debt. It is a transfer of an interest in land from the owner to the mortgage lender, on the condition that this interest will be returned to the owner when the terms of the mortgage have been satisfied or performed. In other words, the mortgage is a security for the loan that the lender makes to the borrower.
The Land Registration Act 2002 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which repealed and replaced previous legislation governing land registration, in particular the Land Registration Act 1925, which governed an earlier, though similar, system. The Act, together with the Land Registration Rules, regulates the role and practice of HM Land Registry.
The Law of Property Act 1925 is a statute of the United Kingdom Parliament. It forms part of an interrelated programme of legislation introduced by Lord Chancellor Lord Birkenhead between 1922 and 1925. The programme was intended to modernise the English law of real property. The Act deals principally with the transfer of freehold or leasehold land by deed.
Overriding interest is an English land law concept. The general rule in registered conveyancing is that all interests and rights over a piece of land have to be written on the register entry for that land. Otherwise, when anyone buys that piece of land, the interests will not apply to the purchaser, and the rights will be lost. Overriding interests are the exception to this general rule. Overriding interests need not be registered to bind any new owner.
Birmingham Midshires Mortgage Services Limited v Sabherwal [2000] 80 P&CR 256 is an English property law case, concerning the principles of equitable interests, overriding interests, and overreaching interests. It is one of many cases where the commercial rights mortgage lenders need to do business clash with the rights of innocent parties facing the loss of their home.
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.
Overreaching is a concept in English land law and the Law of Property Act 1925. It refers to a situation where a person's equitable property right is dissolved, detached from a piece of property, and reattached to money that is given by a third party for the property. This happens, according to City of London Building Society v Flegg in any case where property is bought or mortgaged in a contract with two or more title holders.
The Law of Property Act 1989 is a United Kingdom Act of Parliament, which laid down a number of significant revisions to English property law.
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.
City of London Building Society v Flegg[1987] UKHL 6 is an English land law case decided in the House of Lords on the relationship between potential overriding interests and the concept of overreaching.
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.
Easements in English law are certain rights in English land law that a person has over another's land. Rights recognised as easements range from very widespread forms of rights of way, most rights to use service conduits such as telecommunications cables, power supply lines, supply pipes and drains, rights to use communal gardens and rights of light to more strained and novel forms. All types are subject to general rules and constraints. As one of the formalities in English law express, express legal easements must be created by deed.
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. The modern law's sources derive from the old courts of common law and equity, along with legislation such as the Law of Property Act 1925, the Settled Land Act 1925, the Land Charges Act 1972, the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 and the Land Registration Act 2002. At its core, English land law involves the acquisition, content and priority of rights and obligations among people with interests in land. Having a property right in land, as opposed to a contractual or some other personal right, matters because it creates privileges over other people's claims, particularly if the land is sold on, the possessor goes insolvent, or when claiming various remedies, like specific performance, in court.
Central Registry of Securitisation Asset Reconstruction and Security Interest (CERSAI) is a central online security interest registry of India. It was primarily created to check frauds in lending against equitable mortgages, in which people would take multiple loans on the same asset from different banks.
Hodgson v Marks[1971] EWCA Civ 8 is an English land law case concerning the right of a person with an equitable interest in a home to remain in actual occupation, even if a bank has a charge and is seeking repossession.
Abbey National Building Society v Cann[1990] UKHL 3 is an English land law case concerning the right of a person with an equitable interest in a home to remain in actual occupation, if a bank has a charge and is seeking repossession. A controversial decision, it held that "actual occupation" entails some degree of permanence, and that if someone buys a property with a mortgage, the bank's charge is to be treated as having priority over any equitable interest.
The Land Registration Act 1925 (LRA) was an act of Parliament in the United Kingdom that codified, prioritised and extended the system of land registration in England and Wales. It has largely been repealed, and updated in the Land Registration Act 2002.
Link Lending Ltd v Bustard [2010] EWCA Civ 424 is an English land law case, concerning actual occupation in registered land and the vulnerable, in this case a defrauded person suffering from a mental syndrome who would have had little concept of what was occurring.
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.
Thompson v Foy[2009] EWHC 1076 (Ch) is an English land law case concerning the right of a person with an overriding interest in a home and deals with a family arrangement for a house to be a gift transferring from a mother to a daughter and the trust between the two parties that the daughter would pay the mother her sum to buy out her share of the property.