FULL SET OF REVISION NOTES (72 PAGES) OF ENTIRE LAND LAW MODULE AT UNDERGRADUATE STUDY (LAW LLB)
66% - 2:1 IN EXAM
Includes:
- module themes e.g. market logics in land law
- registration
- owner occupation
- covenants
- leases and licences
LAND LAW REVISION GUIDE
EXAM STRUCTURE:
2-hour exams
2 essay questions – equally weighted
1 hour on each essay question – ideally 10-15 mins planning and 45 mins
writing.
Module Themes:
(Malleable and Plural) Concepts of Property
Market logics in land law
Registration and its politics/ morality
Topics:
Registration
o Concepts of property Birks (THEORETICAL IDEOLOGIES OF
LAND this must be linked to all of the
o Making and transferring rights (market)
o Adverse possession reforming of AP (Land Registration Act 2002
changes)
o Equitable Estoppel and Mutuality (Ives and Chaudhary) little on
overriding interests (defining schedule 3 paragraph 2 e.g. Yavuz)
Owner Occupation
o Mortgagors and mortgagee’s
o Constructive Trusts
o Mortgagors, Beneficiaries’ and any other third parties (typically a
husband wife and a bank A, B and C situation (triangle)
o Overriding interests
Covenants:
o Leasehold
Leases as proprietary right/ making a lease
Enforcing covenants in regard to leases
Reforming leasehold (HELEN CARR and all that law reform
proposal stuff)
o Freehold covenants
Restrictive covenants passing the burden (obligation not to
do something)
Positive covenants passing of the benefit (obligation giving
the right to do something)
Glossary:
LPA – Law of Property Act 1925
LRA – Land Registration Act 2002
LTA – Landlord and Tenant Act 1927
LTCA – Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995
AP – Adverse Possession
B’s – Beneficiaries
T’s – Trustee’s
, CICT – Common Intention Constructive Trust
LO – Original Landlord
TO – Original Tenant
LA – Assigned Landlord
TA – Assigned Tenant
ST – Subtenant
SA – Assignee of the Sublease
H – Husband
W - Wife
LINKING OF THE THEORETICAL IDEOLOGIES OF LAND TO THE
TOPICS STUDIED
Birks “5 Keys” to Land Law:
Property can be divided into 5 key things rather than one unitary thing, all of
these things in turn link to the topics that we have learned in the module
1. TIME
Birks ideology of Land as Time:
o People deal with land in slices of time
This is for two reasons Commercial motivations or non-
commercial motivations
The slice of time represents the duration that a person will have
an interest in that land for
A huge slice of time measured by the land itself = a fee simple
o Commercial Motivation
Definition: the desire to get money out of the land
Selling of one’s whole interest in the land is to sell the
whole slice of time over which one has control
People deal with land in shorter slices of time so they can
realize in money some of the value in land without giving up
their whole interest
E.g. Leases
o This way the fee simple remains the owners,
though obstructed by the lease
o Non-commercial Motivation
Family motivation can encompass this
Idea of keeping a piece of land in the family has been a
distinct part of law
o Land Registration Act 1925 functions to allow for
anybody to acquire land, by assuring that those
who are dealing with a slice of time in a way other
than leases or a slice of time lasting forever must
do so in equity as of a trust
o There has been a movement towards facilitation, rather than
inhabitation
Before many people
Efforts have gone towards preventing the restraint of land for
long periods of time
Leaseholds:
, In order for a lease to exist it must be established in regard to specific types of
land
o This land is defined under - S.1 LPA:
1 Legal estates and equitable interests.
(1) The only estates in land which are capable of subsisting or of being
conveyed or created at law are—
(a) An estate in fee simple absolute in possession;
(b) A term of years absolute.
Common Law definition of a Lease:
To create a leasehold, you must have:
o Exclusive possession of an estate in land
o For a fixed period of time
o At a rent
Street v Mountford [1985] AC 809
A Leasehold confers a proprietary interest to the Tenant (T), but ownership still
remains with the Landlord (L)
A breakdown of the requirements:
EXCLUSIVE POSSESSION OF LAND FOR A CERTAIN TERM
o How long might that term be?
Term can be long or short
This can demonstrate the flexibility of a lease – the
duration of a lease can last from 1 day to 999 years
Practical terms – shortest lease would be 6 months
o Periodic or fixed term
A TERM OF YEARS ABSOLUTE
o Time limited interest leasehold agreements confer rights for a fixed
period
o Parties to a leasehold agreement are:
The lessor/landlord and the lessee/leaseholder/tenant
Often Lessor/Landlord is the freeholder but not always (must be
careful with distinction)
o Fits in with Birks definition of Land – gives T a smaller slice of time in
relation to L’s fee simple (providing they are the freeholder)
Other important facts about Leases:
Can be granted by the freeholder or by a leaseholder as a sublease for any
period shorter than his/her term
A leaseholder can assign his/her lease – as long as there are no restrictions
within the lease or statutory restrictions on his/her capacity to do so - see S.19
Landlord and Tenant Act 1927
o Property interests that can be sold or assigned might need consent for
assignment
o S19 – if there is a requirement of consent, the consent cannot be
withheld unfairly
, Housing Act 1980– disapplies this
A Lease has a dual legal function:
Proprietorial
o Enables transactions - a lease can be transferred to someone else,
bind 3rd parties (an assignment) and subleases can be created
but the contract can restrict that characteristic
o Statutory rights such as the Right to Buy and statutory enfranchisement
position the lease as a ‘gateway’ to freehold ownership
Right to buy – Housing Act 1980 – council tenants can purchase
their property
Market logistics in land law – demonstrates the attempts
to facilitate the market, want people to move towards
ownership rather than leasehold agreements
o Lease enables shared ownership
Enables you to purchase just a share of a property, but still rent
the property
Access to freehold ownership
Malleable concept of property.
Contractual
o The lease sets out the contractual relationship between the landlord
and tenant
Statute may interfere with this
Implied rights etc.
o Bruton v London Quadrant Housing Association (2000) – evidence of
increasing contractualisation
Right that the tenant claimed, was a right greater than that that
the landlord had but it deemed to exist because of the
relationship between landlord and tenant
“Nemo-dat” principle does not apply
The Formalities of a Lease:
S.52 (1) LPA
o If a lease is for the duration of 3 years or more it must be created by a
deed
Failure to use a deed means that what is created is an equitable
lease on broadly equivalent terms
S.54(2) LPA
o Deeds not necessary for leases of durations less than 3 years, as they
can be made orally
New lease of more than seven years must be registered
All registerable dispositions of registered leasehold estates must be registered
o So, assignments of registered leases must be registered
o Leases of longer than 7 years, much more akin to owner occupation.
The formalities involved in a leasehold demonstrate the movement towards
registration in land law (e.g. lease of greater than 7 years must be registered)
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