Class notes
Land Law (LAW242) - Semester 2 Lecture Notes
- Course
- Institution
Full lecture notes for land law (LAW242) - semester 2 Contains cases, judicial opinions and academic commentary.
[Show more]
Seller
Follow
gemmawatson
Content preview
Land Law – Dr John TribeLecture 1: introduction
Prof avna offer (?)
- Less about individuals pushing through statute that suited them, more about
changing the societal way that land is owned
The place of land law in society
- Every society must have some concept of property
- This relationship can be with people specifically (by excluding other people from
using it)
o Everyone must have somewhere to live, and consequently everyone wants
land
However- land is finite and may have competing demands on it
Tensions with e.g. utilities and vehicles
- Smith – focusses on purchasers
- Birks – takes conceptual approach in conceptualising land and time
Relationships with land
- Proprietary or personal
- Also studying relationships between people (ie tenant/landlord) and protection of
interests in land
Social context of land law
- Land Registration for the 21st Century: A Conveyancing Revolution, 2001, Law Com
No.271
Statutory evolution
- Land registration act 2002
- Land Registration Rules 2003 SI 2003 No.1417
- Protection from Eviction Act 1977
- Family Law Act 1996
- Administration of Justice Act 1970
- Housing Act 1988
Judicial evolution
- Williams & Glyn’s Bank Ltd v Boland [1980] 2 All ER 408
o Gives spouses in actual occupation interest
- Royal Bank of Scotland v Etridge (No 2) [2001] 4 All ER 449
o Lord nicholls
o Lord Birkenhead – opinion
Individual interests and larger social interests
,The extent of land
- Definition:
o LPA 1925
o Grigsby v Melville
Large detached house split into 2 by vendor
Cellar ran below both properties
Buyer claimed that he had bought the cellar
If you purchase a property/land, what is the extent of your
ownership
o Prima facie, you own everything underneath what you
buy
- Case of Mines (1567) 1 Plowd 310
o Held that the gold and silver at that time under the property belongs to the
crown
- Petroleum act 1988
o Gives crown exclusive right to petrol on your land
- Coal Act
- Treasure act 1996
- Civil Aviation Act 1982
o You also own the air above you
o Prof gray property in thin air (article)
The extent to which you can/can’t have ownership of tangible
property
- Restrictions on land
o Environmental protection act 1990
Must register contaminated land
o Town and country planning act 1990
Planning permission
o Water resources act 1991
Mine water is very damaging
Trusts of land
- Trusts in the family home
- Charitable trusts in land
- Management of property
o Eg a trustee company
Estates in land
- Freehold estate – as close to outright ownership as possible in English law
- Leasehold estate
- Joint freehold / joint lease
Law and equity
- Equitable lease
- Legal lease
Lecture 2 – Estates and interests
,Recap
- Property in thin air – prof gray (good article)
- Lack of formality equity can have a role
- Trusts of land
o Trusts in the family home
o Charitable trusts in land
o Management of property
e.g. a trustee company
- Estates in land
o Freehold estate
As close to outright ownership as possible in English law
o Leasehold estate
o Joint freehold/joint lease
- Law and equity
o Equitable lease
o Legal lease
o It is possible to hold trusts over land
Equity overlap
o A major course focus will be estates in land
These are already familiar from ordinary life: freehold and leasehold
o Law and Equity work together
more on this later in the course
Estates and interests
- what is a legal estate?
o Title (estate ownership)
e.g. fee simple absolute in possession
Freehold
Majority of rights helpful for enforcement
e.g. term of years absolute in possession
Leasehold
Rights time-limited
- What is a legal interest?
o Every relationship to the land which is not an estate
e.g. legal easement
e.g. legal mortgage
o Recognised by the ordinary law – not equity
- Easement as an interest in land
o Dominant tenement (needs the easement eg for access to house)
o Servient tenement (provides the easement e.g. driveway goes through their
land – right of passage)
o ‘Relationship with land’ as opposed to ‘relationships with people’
- Title as a bundle of rights
, o Contains multiple different interests e.g. mortgages, easements, leaseholds,
freeholds
- Before Law of Property Act 1925
o Law designed to further specific interests
e.g. family interests
pre-WW1 majority of people were leaseholders
o Fee tail
Used by aristocrats
Constructed to facilitate the passing of property through the male
heir line to retain estate value
o Life estate
Estate providing for an individual for their entire lives
o Estate pur autre vie
Created to give interest to another
Associated with helping members of the family
- Simplification of estates
o Law of Property Act 1925, s.1(1)
Only estates now existing are fee simple absolute in possession &
term of years absolute in possession.
o Law of Property Act 1925, s.1(3)
Old estates continue to be recognised by Equity
- Fee simple absolute in possession
o ‘absolute’ capacity of continuing indefinitely
- Freehold v leasehold estates
o Only estates now existing are fee simple absolute in possession & term of
years absolute in possession
Core summary
- Used to be a wider range of legal estate
o Some continue to half-exist in equity
- Now there is just freehold and leasehold
o Ownership rights
- Legal interests relate to land (not arrangements with people)
- Estates give ownership interests,
Leases
- Sparkes, ‘Certainty of Leasehold Terms’(1993) 109 L.Q.R. 93
o Leases must be for a certain term (know when the lease started, how long
they will, and when they will end)
o Allows smooth and predictable transactions for business
- Harwood, ‘Leases: are they still not really real?’ (2000) Legal Studies 503
o Worth reading
o Conceptualisation of the lease by the legislature and text-book writers
o Dixon v Harwood two opposing views from their articles
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller gemmawatson. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $14.17. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
75632 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now