(Student achieved 72% (a first) overall in this Land Law module.) This document smoothly introduces the area of land law by looking at its foundations (Learning Cycle 1). It explores tenure, estates and interests; before looking at other interesting topics such as the difference between property ri...
Concerns the distinctive body of rules that regulates the ownership of land.
Core topics include:
History, structure and concerns of land law
The registered title regime
Formal and informal acquisition of interests
Co-ownership and successive ownership
Leases
Licenses
Easements
Security
Adverse possession
Human rights
Future challenges
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LEARNING CYCLE 1 – FOUNDATIONS
LC OBJECTIVES
What formalities are required in land law transactions?
What types of estate exist and what are they?
What types of interest exist and what are they?
What’s the significance of the difference between property and personalty?
What’s Different about Land Law Rights Compared to Other Rights?
Land law…
Rights are capable of binding third parties.
Rights are exclusive (and excluding- will give you a right to exclude others).
-These create what Lorna Fox O’Mahony describes as ‘property insiders/outsiders’
(people on the street would be property outsiders as they are excluded).
Rights are creatures of statute and the common law.
Focuses on making life easier by facilitating alienation (disposable of land & creation
of interests in land) and also land registration.
-Why does it do it? It’s about oiling the wheels of capitalism, and making sure that
people buy and sell land.
-We worry about making things too difficult or uncertain, so certainty is crucial for
land lawyers (certainty is about limiting what rights can exist in land, knowing that
those rights exist and certainty in terms of transactions).
Politics of Land Law
Land law almost neutralises politics.
Think about Grenfell Tower tragedy: people have literally been made bankrupt
because their buildings were found to be unsafe and they can’t afford to pay their
service charges.
Why ‘foundations’? These are the building blocks of land law.
Three important things…
1) Estates and Interests
2) Formalities
3) Reading cases
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Estates and Interests
An estate is what you have/own in the land itself (a metaphor of ‘time’).
Two important estates in land:
1) Freehold (fee simple absolute in possession).
2) Leasehold (term of years absolute).
-These are so important that they’re in s. 1(1) of the LPA 1925; because they’re capable of
existing at law.
-How do we know if they do exist at law? It’s all about formalities.
-If they don’t exist at law, then they might exist in equity.
Other estates are available, like the life estate, but these cannot exist in law.
An interest is what you have in/over somebody else’s land.
This comes in the form of a…
1) Mortgage (e.g., borrowing money from a bank to pay for a property); or
2) Easement (i.e., the right to use someone else’s land for a specified purpose).
-These two are capable of existing at law, according to s. 1(2) of the LPA 1925.
-However, in this unit we deal substantively with easements (LC7).
Formalities
These are crucial in land law so you need to know them; they govern the creation and
transfer of rights in land law (if you don’t use formalities, you might not have a land law
right).
1) Creation/transfer of legal rights
The rule of thumb is that legal rights require a deed (also known in land law as the
transfer/conveyance; example of a deed is the TR1), and the right isn’t legal until it’s
been registered.
-A deed used to have to be signed, sealed and delivered; but now it must be signed,
delivered and intended to be a deed (s. 1, LPMPA).
-If you have a freehold or leasehold for more than 7 years, it must be registered (in
this unit, we assume that everything is registered).
-One exception for a deed = short leases (>3yrs) at the best rent reasonably
obtainable and that take effect in possession immediately (s. 54(2), LPA 1925).
2) Creation/transfer of rights in equity
To create a right in equity, easiest way to do it is by way of contract (s. 2, LPMPA).
-They must be in writing and signed by/on behalf of both of the parties and
incorporating all the terms (s. 53(1) (a) and (b)).
Or, they can be created/transferred through informalities: resulting trusts,
constructive trusts and proprietary estoppel (s. 53(2), LPA).
-However, land lawyers hate informalities and prefer to deal with formalities.
Why Formalities?
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