Land Registration

Question 0

Title Registration

Answer 0

First compulsory registration: -S4 LPA02 of freehold fee simple absolute possession.
And legal leasehold of 7 years+.

Registration upon transfer of unregistered land- will be triggered.

Question 1

Land Registration Act 1925/2002

Answer 1

Title is registered NOT the land.

Transaction driven- primary aim is to ensure the quick, efficient and inexpensive transfer of estates and interests in land while ensuring that 3rd party interests in land are properly protected.

Question 2

Three fundamental principles of land registration

Answer 2

Mirror
Curtain
Insurance

Question 3

Mirror principle

Answer 3

Reflect the totality of rights and interests concerning the title.
However the role unregistered interests which override ruin the reflection of the mirror.
- any third party purchaser should rest assured that they are fully protected.

Question 4

Curtain Principle

Answer 4

Some equitable interests should be left behind the ‘curtain’.
A person who wishes to buy registered land that is subject to a trust need only concern themselves with legal title.
As the equitable interest behind the curtain will be overreached transferring the equitable interest in land into the money the purchaser has paid.

Question 5

Williams + Glyn’s Bank v Boland 1981

Answer 5

Bank’s failure to look behind curtain and discover the wife’s equitable interest meant that the mortgage lost priority to the rights of the borrower’s wife.

Husband registered title in husbands name to be held on trust for himself and his wife held the equitable interest.
Husband mortgaged land to bank. Did Bank’s mortgage take effect subject to wife’s equitable interest.
Held that wife’s interests took priority over banks.

Question 6

Insurance Principle

Answer 6

If title is duly registered it is guaranteed by state.
There is statutory indemnity for any purchaser who suffers loss.
Insurance principle provides assurance and confidence to purchasers.

Question 7

LRA02 - Operation of Registered Land: 4 types of title.

Answer 7

1) Absolute title
2) Good leasehold title
3) Possessory title
4) Qualified title

Question 8

Absolute title

Answer 8

-Effects ascribed by S11 LRA02
- fullest recognition of rights.
-REGISTERED PROPRIETOR GRANTED WITH FULL FEE SIMPLE.
-ALL BENEFITS FOR ESTATE BUT SUBJECT ONLY TO NOTICES AND OVERRIDING INTERESTS - Schedule 1 LRA02.
applies to freehold legal title/ rare for leasehold.

Question 9

Good leasehold title

Answer 9

Proprietors of long leasehold are registered with good leasehold.
Proprietor has strong title except that it is subject to any interests affecting landlord freehold/superior title

Question 10

Registration: S58 LRA02

Answer 10

Title by registration after conclusive entry on to register.

Question 11

Basic Priority Rule -S28 LRA02

Answer 11

If the transferee is not a purchaser, it is inherited/gift etc, S28 of LRA stipulates that the transferee who has not paid for the land! should take it as it come.
Subject to all prior property rights, irrespective of whether those property rights were entered on the register.

Question 12

Special Priority Rule - S29 LRA02

Answer 12

If transferor has given valuable consideration under s29 LRA02.
When title registered takes land free from all existing property rights- purchaser should only be bound by property rights entered on register.
Except; *registered charges *overriding interests within schedule 3;
*protected registered interests,

Question 13

Halifax v Popeck (2008)

Answer 13

Fraudulent transfer- transfer was found to be not for value under s28, even though it was portrayed by parties/conveyancing documents as a sale.

If not for valuable consideration then takes under s28 which means take title subject to all interests which pre-date the disposition to him.

Question 14

Unregistered interests which override under LRA02

Answer 14

The LRA02 act modified the act with regards to impact of unregistered but binding rights.

Question 15

Schedule 1 LRA02 - Unregistered interests which override at first registration.

Answer 15

-Legal leases 7 years or less will override without being registered at first registration.

Question 16

Schedule 1 para 2: interests of persons in actual occupation

Answer 16

A personal claiming an overriding interest must prove that he holds a property interest in the land that is to be first registered and that he is in actual occupation of the land at the relevant time.

Question 17

Actual occupation

Answer 17

Schedule 1 para 1 limits the legal reach of the overriding interest to the land actually occupied
Each case turns on its own facts and Lord Wilberforce in Williams & Glyns Bank v Boland (1981) stated that the words ‘actual occupation’ should be given their ordinary meaning and be interpreted as such.

Question 18

Actual occupation: 
Chokar v Chokar 
Linklending vBustard 
Abbey National v Cann 
Lloyds Bank v Rosset 
Malory v Cheshire Homes

Answer 18

Does not necessarily involve personal presence of the person claiming to occupy.
Chokar: absence due to giving birth represented actual occupation.
Bustard: absence due to presence at psychiatric unit represented actual occupation. - persistent intention to return = actual occupation.
Abbey National: actual occupation through presence of an agent/representative on your behalf.
Lloyds Bank v Rosset - builders on the premise can constitute actual occupation.
Malory: derelict land that was unusable, actual occupation through acts of minimal use such as erecting a fence.

Question 19

Hypo- Mortgage Services v Robinson (1997)

Williams and Glyn’s Bank v Boland (1981)

Answer 19

The mere presence of children with parents absent does not constitute actual occupation, since children are a shadow of their parents.

Boland: wives do not occupy premises as mere shadows of their husbands.

Question 20

Chaudhury v Yavuz (2011)

Answer 20

Using an easement does not amount to actual occupation of the servient land; as it is simply the exercising of a right.

Question 21

Schedule 1, para 3: legal easements and profits a pendre

Answer 21

Prior to first registration these rights would have bound the estate as legal rights binding the whole world.

In many instances these legal interests will in face be entered against the title at first registration and will then cease to overriding.
The burden will be made against the servient title and an entry will be made on the title of the dominant land, indicating that the right is to be enjoyed by the estate.

Question 22

Schedule 1, paras 4-9

Answer 22

Other permanent overriding interests

Question 23

Schedule 3.Unregistered interests which override a registered disposition.

Answer 23

Broadly similar to schedule 1, just narrower primarily because schedule 3 operates where there has been a transfer of land to a new aim.
Primary aim of the LRA02 is to ensure that the transferee of registered land is fully aware of as many adverse interests as possible before he takes the transfer.

Question 24

Schedule 3, paragraph 1; short term leases for seven years or less.

Answer 24

Almost identical to the provision in schedule 1.

• will override as a registered disposition.
• will bind transferee automatically.

(Any leases for longer than 7 years are registrable as individual titles).

Question 25

Schedule 3, paragraph 2; interests of persons in actual occupation.

Answer 25

• actual occupation provisions do not mirror those of schedule 1.
• schedule 3 restricts the circumstances in which a person may claim an overriding interest.
• no protection for the interests of persons in receipt of rent and profits if they are out of actual occupation.

Question 26

Schedule 3, para 2

Thompson v Foy

Cook v Mortgage Business

Answer 26

General principle is that a person claiming an overriding interest must establish both that *he holds a property interest in the burdened land and *be in actual occupation of the land to which the interest extends within the meaning of the schedule.

Thompson: actual occupation must exist at both moments: when the disposition is registered and when the transaction is executed.

Cook: a potential interest that arose because of the contract of sale to the purchaser, not before the contract) could not override as it would not pre-date the disposition.

Question 27

Schedule 3; para 2: additional conditions for actual occupation.

Answer 27

1) actual occupation must be capable of ‘being obvious on a reasonable inspection of the land at the time of the disposition’ or that the interest being protected must be within the actual knowledge of the transferree at that time.
2) an interest will not override if inquiry was made of the right holder and he failed to disclose the interest when he could reasonably have been expected to do so.

Question 28

Schedule 3, paragraph 3; Certain legal easements and profits

Answer 28

-no equitable equitable or profit will override.
-only certain legal legal interests and profits will override.
Legal easement will override if any one of the additional conditions are satisfied.

Question 29

Registration of title governed by:

Answer 29

S4 LRA02 = compulsory registration of title is for very first time.

S27 LRA02= registration where an already registered title is being transferred.