Land Registration

Question 1

How is the idea of land registration should make all interests discoverable compromised?

Answer 1

We recognise the significance of some interests in land and that we ought not leave their protection to voluntary registration: overriding interests.

Question 2

What does LRA 1925, s. 70 tell us?

Answer 2

What interests ‘override’ the registration system.

Question 3

When will interests in land bind you as a disponee?

Answer 3

Interests that should have been registered but haven’t been won’t bind you if you are a disponee for value.

They will if they have been registered.

Question 4

What is the mirror principle?

Answer 4

That the Land Registry should reflect nearly all the interests that exist in relation to any plot of land.

Question 5

How is the mirror principle compromised?

Answer 5

By the existence of overriding interests.

Question 6

What is arguably the most important overriding interest?

Answer 6

‘Actual occupation’ of land to which you don’t hold legal title.

Question 7

What doesn’t need to be registrable?

Answer 7

Leases shorter than 3 years’ duration can’t be registraiton, and for those lasting between 3 and 7 years this is optional.

Question 8

What does LRA 2002, sch 3, para 1 say?

Answer 8

That leasehold estates shorter than 7 years’ duration count as overriding interests.

Question 9

What is another way of describing overriding interests?

Answer 9

Interests which override the register.

Question 10

What did 2002 LRA do to overriding interests?

Answer 10

Reduced the number of possible overriding interests (because a number of them rarely caused litigation).

Also redefines overriding interests in a way that benefits a disponee who doesn’t want to be bound by such an interest after having tried and failed to discover it.

Question 11

Is the objective of abolishing the doctrine of notice in LRA 2002 compromised by the persistence of overriding interests?

Answer 11

Yes.

Question 12

Which legislative provision allows for actual occupation of the land to be protected as an overriding interest?

Answer 12

LRA 1925, s 70(1)(g)

Question 13

Does an actual occupier have to show more than just actual occupation?

Answer 13

Yes, they have to prove that they hold a property right/interest in the land that’s about to be registered. They are in actual occupation and have some property right. It is the trigger for protection, but it is protecting a property right.

Question 14

What does the case of Scott v Southern Pacific Mortgages (2014) tell us?

Answer 14

That just because you were promised various property rights, if you don’t actually have property rights in the land then you not have a right in the occupied land as an actual occupier: you must have the right ‘at the time of the disposition’ (LRA 2002 Sch 3 para 2)

Question 15

Do you need to physically occupy the land at all time in order to be classed as an actual occupier?

Answer 15

No. There has to be some degree of continuity and permanence to your occupation (so you can still be an actual occupier even if hospitalised or on holiday). ‘Mere fleeting presence’ is not enough.

Question 16

What does the case of Link Lending v Bustard (2010) tell us?

Answer 16

That even if the occupant had been hospitalized for the past 6 weeks, she was still an occupier and the presence of her physical possessions added to the inference of occupation.

Question 17

What does the case of Stockholm Finance v Garden Holdings (1995) tell us?

Answer 17

Daughter moved back into a house she had previously lived in 14 months earlier in order to prevent the lender of a loan to her mother selling the house in order to get their money back. Held that D was not in actual occupation as the move back was simply a means to an end and she had no general intention to occupy the property.

Question 18

Can actual occupation be proven through occupation by proxy?

Answer 18

Yes. The presence of builders, caretakers and moving furniture in and out can demonstrate actual occupation.

See Abbey National v Cann (1991), where Cann’s agents were moving furniture into the house whilst the Building Society’s property inspector was there. The inspector should have asked whose furniture was being moved in.

Question 19

What happened in the case of Williams & Glyn’s Bank v Boland (1981)

Answer 19

Mr B was sole registered proprietor of the house he lived in with his wife, Mrs B, who had made substantial financial contributions to acquire the house with him.

Mr B took out a second mortgage on the house and defaulted, and so WGB wanted to sell the house, but needed Mrs B to vacate the property, but she wouldn’t.

The House of Lords upheld her equitable interest in the house and this, coupled with her actual occupation of it, meant she had an overriding interest.

Question 20

What is the reasonable inspection requirement?

Answer 20

In 2002, the law changed to make clear the circumstances in which disponees shouldn’t lose under the Boland ruling.

LRA 2002 sch 3 para 2(c) provides that a disponee won’t be found if: (1) the actual occupation wasn’t obvious on ‘reasonably careful inspection of the land; and (2) the asserted right of occupation was not within ‘actual knowledge’ of the disponee at the time of the disposition.

Question 21

What happened in the case of Chhokar v Chhokar (1984)?

Answer 21

Mr C sold his house to Mr P without Mrs C’s awareness. Whilst title to the house was registered in Mr P’s name alone, Mrs C had paid towards the purchase price. She claimed actual occupation based on the fact that some of her furniture was still in the house. CA held she had an overriding interest. Mr P was not penalised for not making enquiries about the furniture.

Question 22

Would the case of Chhokar v Chhokar likely to be decided differently under LRA 2002 sch 3 para 2(c)?

Answer 22

Mr P could have argued that discovery of the presence of the furniture didn’t make the specific fact of Mrs C’s actual occupation obvious.

Question 23

What does LRA 2002 Sch 3 para 2(b) tell us?

Answer 23

That a disponee will not be bound by actual occupation if the occupier failed to disclose his property interest ‘when he [the occupier] could reasonably have been expected to do so.’

Question 24

What 5 things can defeat actual occupation?

Answer 24

(1) Overreaching occurs (as in Flegg).
(2) Actual occupation can’t be proved.
(3) The disponee inspected the land carefully but didn’t discover AO and didn’t know of the occupier’s right of the occupation at the time of the disposition
(4) the occupier failed to disclose her interest when she could reasonably have been expected to do so.
(5) the actual occupier impliedly consents to the disponee acquiring an interest in the land that should have priority over hers: Bristol & West v Henning (1985).

Question 25

What is one of the key principles of the LRA 2002?

Answer 25

That a right in rem will affect a disponee of the land in question in only two sets of circumstances: (1) if it appears on the register or (2) it operates as an ‘overriding interests’.