English LAND LAW FOR BEGINNERS

Effective study in Land Law

Learning smarter, not harder, is the secret to being successful in law school at university. Law is a field that offers the most diverse and extensive opportunities for learning that there is not enough time in the day to study and accomplish everything. If you are a law student, one of your responsibilities is to decide the best way to allocate your time and effort to ensure achievement in studying law and make yourself more attractive to be offered a training contract or pupillage (whatever floats your boat) after completing your studies. Do not forget that your law professor has told you to read something, this does not mean it is the most efficient method of using your time.

For a law student, one of the ways to study smarter is by using strategies and methods to maximize the efficiency of your learning process and knowledge acquisition. In this article we are going to discuss English land law for beginners and the origins of the medieval theory of English land law.

Freehold, leasehold and sulease

The English law of the land were rooted in the Norman invasion in 1066. Through that, the king gained the final title to the entirety of property in England. However, through time, the sovereign granted individual land rights to people, and they became the proprietors, but not the actual land but an "estate" in the land, every estate being graded by the duration of its time. The fee-simple estate is the main estate in land, as it is an estate with unlimited duration. It is not in accordance with the medieval concept of land tenure. It is in all practical terms equivalent to the total possession of the land. The no strings attached. The person who is the tenant of an estate that is fee simple can be described as “the freeholder". The owner of land who is freehold can grant subordinate "leasehold" interest to another individual, whereby the person receives an interest known as a lease (or "term of years absolute" that encapsulates the exclusive ownership of the land for a specified period of time. Then, subject to the restrictions set on the owner by the lease, the leaseholder has the option of signing a sublease (for any time less than the length that is the duration of the "head" lease) "head" lease). A major legal codification for English land law was made in 1925 following the passing of the Law of Property Act 1925. The law, which is the primary source of English land law, was able to adopt the following ideas.

Legal And Equitable

English land law draws an important distinction between equitable and legal rights. In one way, specifically about trusts, legal rights may be described as representing shape, while equitable rights refer to the substance. When a person purchases something like a freehold home with their own money, the person will be the owner of the legal and equitable estate of the property. There is no separate equitable estate because it will be taken into the legally owned estate.

However, when a person purchases that property solely using money lent by another party, and it is planned that the third party take over the role of, in fact, the "real" owner, then the legal estate will remain the money purchaser. Still, an equitable property will go to the third party. This is what the we call a resulting trust. The money purchaser is the equitable owner and the defacto purchaser holds the property on a resulting trust for the equitable owner.

Equity rights in property arise because of the judicial recognition of conscience-driven obligations that oblige an estate owner to handle an asset in a particular manner, and keep the property to benefit the third person. The obligation of conscience is more important than the strict legal rights. When they arise, equitable rights are created and are not as much "carved out of" the legal estate but "engrafted" upon it. The "trust" provides the classic situation where equitable ownership differs from legal ownership. The only obligation for the trustee will be to secure the asset to give the benefit of the trust assets to those who are recipients of the trust, who have the right to an equitable fee-simple estate.

Trusts may be created through a written agreement or, more often, implied agreement, like above. These rights can be enforced against the third party. Before the land legislation of 1925, the beneficiary's rights were valid against any person not limited to "a bona fide purchaser of a legal estate for valuable consideration without notice (whether actual or constructive)". This concept remains in force in the case of unregistered land with the HM Land Registry. In this manner, the mortgage lender who lends the money through refinancing thus gains legal rights. As a result, the legal obligation is legally bound by the rights of an individual in occupation unless reasonable measures are taken to determine what rights the occupier have under equitable law.

The distinction between registered and unregistered titles.

The most fundamental classification in English law relating to land distinguishes between estates with titles that have had their title registered (i.e. centrally registered) in the HM Land Registry and those that have not been registered. The idea of titles to the property being recorded in a central register was first introduced by the Land Registration Act 1925. The legislation that governs it is in effect. You must learn this as a first thing you do in land law.

FINAL REMARKS

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