Unregistered land

Question 1

Williams &Glyn’s Bank v Boland

Answer 1

Because wife had made a contribution to the property, it gave her a right of ownership.

Question 2

Types of Freehold estates

Answer 2

1) Fee simple
2) Fee tail
3) Life estate

Question 3

estate pur autre vie

Answer 3

Life estate - ownership rights of duration of someone elses life

Question 4

Estates in possession/remainder/reversion

Answer 4

Estates in possession – A person who has present ownership rights is said to have estates in possession, this is A. If estates gives you rights of land in the future then the estate is terms in two different ways. If person entitled to future rights in land but is not the grantor then his estate is called the estate in remainder, this is B. But if the future rights in land is the grantor, the this is called the estates in reversion, this is F.

Question 5

Difference between freeholder estate and leaseholder

Answer 5

Freeholder - uncertainty in duration

Leaseholder - certainty in duration.

Question 6

Adverse possession

Answer 6

Squatting

Question 7

Asher v Witlock

Answer 7

Squatted on land. Williamson took possession and built a cottage on the land and lived there he wrote a will declaring that the land would to his wife as long as she was unmarried and when the wife dies it goes to the heirs, he then died. Williamson did not own the land but he possessed it. Wife then marriaged, he moved in. However, defendant, by entering into possession started a new title. In 1863, the wife and child died, leaving defendant in possession. However, Mary’s heir claimed possession. Held: who had a better right? Heirs or defendant? Heir

1) The lord could have claimed possession at any time within 20 years of the start of Williamson’s squatting (adverse possession). However, if brought case after 20 years he would have lost out, doesn’t matter if it was successive.
2) An earlier title will take priority over the later titles
3) If Ashers had not claimed title from Witlock, they would have lost their better right in 1881, 20 years after Witlock married Lucy and took possession.

Now, If someone squats, goes into adverse possession then if that squatter wants to replace that person on the register, they have to apply to do this, this give the owner a chance to kick the person out. Under common law the owner might not have known.

Question 8

Ashers v Witlock principle

Answer 8

An earlier title will take priority over the later title.

Question 9

LBC v Qazi [2003] (HL Case)

Answer 9

Lord Millett stated that: “a person who is in actual possession of land is entitled to remain… except a person with a better right to possession”.

Question 10

Are legal life estates enforcable

Answer 10

Universally enforceable against the land.

Question 11

Is an equitable life estate enforceable?

Answer 11

Against everyone apart from the bona fida purchaser

Question 12

Requirements for a ‘bona fida purchaser’

Answer 12

1) Bona fida (good faith)
2) Purchaser for valuable consideration
3) Purchaser of the legal estate
4) Absence of notice

Question 13

Good faith requirements

Answer 13

1) Normally established where the purchaser did not have notice of the equitable interest, both actual and constructive.

Misland Bank Trust v Green

Question 14

Midland Bank Trust v Green,

HL
Per Lord Wilberforce

Answer 14

“Equity, in other words, required not only absence of notice, but genuine and honest absence of notice”

Question 15

Pilcher v Rawlins

Per Lord James

Answer 15

The classic judgment of James LJ in Pilcher v Rawlins is clear authority that it did: good faith there is stated as a separate test which may have to be passed even though absence of notice is proved”.

Question 16

Purchaser for valuable consideration

Requirements

Answer 16

A purchaser denotes any person who acquires land by the voluntary act of the parties as opposed to by operation of law.

1) Inland Revenue Commissioners v Gribble
2) Re Nisbet and Potts Contract

The purchaser must also provide consideration (Law of Property Act 1925 section 205(1)(xxi).

Question 17

Purchaser of the legal estate

Requirements

Answer 17

Purchaser of the:

1) Legal fee simple
2) Legal Lease
3) Legal Mortgage

Question 18

Absence of notice

Answer 18

Actual
Constructive
Imputed

Question 19

Actual Notice

Answer 19

A person has actual notice of all those matters within his knowledge. If you have genuinely forgotten about it then this is not actual knowledge.

Question 20

Lloyd v Banks

Answer 20

Lord Cairns

Not necessary that the purchaser should have acquired the knowledge directly from the owner of the equitable interest.

Question 21

Imputed Notice

Answer 21

Where a purchaser employs an agent, then any actual or constructive notice on agent is conveyed to the purchaser.

1) Kingsnorth Finance v Tizard

Question 22

Constructive notice

Answer 22

Section 199(1)(ii)(a) Law of Property Act 1925

A purchaser will be held to have constructive notice if he has made those inquires and inspections that a reasonable and prudent purchaser would have made in the circumstances.

1) Investigated the documents of title
2) Inspected the land

Question 23

Prudent purchaser

Investigation of the documents of title

Answer 23

The vendor is required to provide an “abstract of title”, detailing documentary evidence of his entitlement to the legal fee simple that he is purporting to sell. It will comprise of:

1) Evidence by which he acquired the fee simple.
2) preceding owner history

The abstract of title has to cover 15 years, as declared by Law of pROPERTY aCT 1969 SECTION 23.

Even where parties agree that the abstract of title should cover a shorter period, a purchaser who fails to investigate the entire period will be held to have had constructive notice of the equitable interests.

= Re Nisbet and Pott’s contract

Question 24

Prudent purchaser

Inspection of land

Answer 24

Vender not in occupation
Hunt v Luck

Vendor in Occupation
Caunce v Caunce
Kingsnorth Finance v Tizard

Question 25

Re Nisbet and Potts contract

Answer 25

Even where the parties agree that the abstract of title should cover a shorter period, a purchaser who fails to investigate the documents of title covering the entire period specified by statute will nonetheless be held to have constructive notice, as the hypothetical prudent purchaser would have done.

Question 26

Pilcher v Rawlins

Answer 26

it was said in judgment that good faith, as part of the doctrine of notice, is a separate requirement to the other requirement of the doctrine (legal estate, valuable consideration, lack of notice). A lack of good faith provides the court with the discretion to prevent the operation of the doctrine.

Question 27

Consideration does not need to be adequate, just sufficient

Answer 27

Midland Bank v Green

Question 28

Kingsnorth Finance v Tizard (1986)

HL

Answer 28

Mrs Tizard had contributed to the purchase price of the property but Mr Tizard was the sole registered proprietor. Mrs Tizard moved out, but visited daily to look after her children. Mr Tizard mortgaged the house, then defaulted. Husband left blank the spouses signature, and in another questioner he declared himself single.

He arranged for the inspection to take place on a Sunday when he knew his wife and children would be out. The agent inspecting the property noted that there was occupation by the children but he found no signs of occupation by the wife.

Held: cannot simply dismiss a wife as a shadow of her husband. Held: she was still in occupation because she stayed every night and visited every day.

It was held that a hypothetical prudent mortgagee would have made further inquiries, which would have disclosed that the mortgagor’s wife claimed an equitable interest in the mortgaged property (based on contributions to the purchase price), and that the actual mortgagee had constructive notice. Prudent purchaser test

Question 29

Re Nisbet and Pott’s Contract

Answer 29

Deeds were inadequately inspected. A purchaser who asserts that he is a bona fide purchaser must prove each of the requirements of the doctrine of notice in turn. The purchaser of land had not looked back far enough in time (as prescribed by statute) to satisfy the doctrine of notice; had he done so, he would either have discovered the two rogue covenants and not purchased the land, or not discovered them, but not been bound by them as not obvious to a reasonable and prudent purchaser under the doctrine of notice. The purchaser was entitled to go back 40 years, because of this a prudent purchaser would have gone back past 40 years and if he had gone back he would have discovered the covenants.

Question 30

Lloyd v Banks

Answer 30

Doctrine of notice

It is not necessary that the purchaser should have acquired the knowledge directly from the owner of the equitable interest.
(Per lord Cairns)

Question 31

Re Montagu’s Settlement

Answer 31

it has been suggested that a purchaser will not have knowledge of a fact that he once knew if at the time of the purchase he has genuinely forgotten all about it:

Question 32

Worthington v Morgan

Answer 32

A purchaser is bound by anything by any right which would have been discovered by such an inspection.

In this case, no investigation was made and the purchaser was deemed to have constructive notice.

Question 33

Caunce v Caunce (1969)

Answer 33

Property in husband’s name, but wife had contributed money to house. Bank was in good faith, gave value for mortgage and purchaser of a legal estate. Did It have notice? Held: no notice of wife’s interest, ludicrous to think bank should check wife’s bank account. This historic case stated that a wife’s rights were irrelevant to the doctrine of notice as a wife lived in the shadow of her husband. This case has since been expressly reversed inKingsnorth Finance v Tizard [1986]