LAND LAW

Land Law

Land Law

Referring to the scenario and noting Nigel position purchasing a freehold from Meryl. Looking at Richard's position Nigel should know that ownership of property, as opposed to ownership of some lesser right in it, is clearly the primary property right. As stated above, there are two ways in which land can be legally owned: freehold and leasehold. Freehold ownership, technically ownership of 'an estate in fee simple absolute in possession', is tantamount to absolute ownership. Technically it is not absolute ownership as, under the vestigial doctrine of tenures, all land in England and Wales ultimately belongs to the Crown.

Freeholders own an estate - the right to exercise ownership rights over the land for a period of time - which will potentially last indefinitely and only come to an end if the freeholder for the time being dies intestate (without a will) without next-of-kin to inherit under the intestacy rules, in which case it will pass to the Crown. Leasehold ownership, technically ownership of an estate for 'a term of years absolute', is tantamount to ownership of land for a definite, 15 and therefore limited, period. The longer the period of the leasehold estate, the closer the ownership is to freehold, reflected in the fact that the commercial value of a long leasehold estate is similar to that of a freehold estate in equivalent land. A leaseholder (lessee or tenant), of course, must hold his estate from a freeholder or intervening leaseholder (in the case of a sub-lease); but the leaseholder has the right to possession of the land for the duration of the lease. A leasehold estate can be granted for any definite period. That period (the term) may be thousands of years but such long leases are unusual.

The typical long lease of residential house is granted for 100-125 years. The nature of disputes that can arise between neighbours is close to infinite, limited only by the potential for interaction between neighbours in whatever capacity and the potential for such interaction to go wrong. Secondly, Ownership of a legal estate gives the owner the right to physical possession of the land in which she holds that estate. In the case of unregistered land 'title' (evidence of the owner's right to property as well as the ownership right itself) is established by the sometimes complex process of investigating previous dealings in the property. In the case of registered land title is established by registration of the estate owner as proprietor on the register of title. Interests in land that will not be listed as distinct titles are either overriding concerns or concerns which need defence on the register. Overriding concerns are enforceable without being defended on the register and bind a listed proprietor and his transferee regardless of the fact he does not understand of their existence. This means overriding concerns competently detract from the standard that the register should be a mirror of the title.

Under the vintage regime of the Land Registration proceed 1925, ...