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Registered Land - From: 1980 To: 1984

This page lists 7 cases, and was prepared on 27 May 2018.

 
Williams and Glyn's Bank Ltd v Boland [1981] AC 487; [1980] 2 All ER 408; [1980] 3 WLR 138; [1980] UKHL 4
19 Jun 1980
HL
Lord Wilberforce, Viscount Dilhorne, Lord Salmon and Lord Roskill
Registered Land, Banking
The wife had made a substantial financial contribution to the purchase price of the house which was registered only in her husband’s name, and charged to the bank. The bank sought possession. The wife resisted saying that she had an overriding interest. Held: Her equitable interest was not only a ‘minor interest’ within section 3 (xv) of the Act, but was also protected as an overriding interest because she occupied the land. The House considered the relationship between registered interests on the one hand, and equitable "minor interests" and trusts on the other. Lord Wilberforce said: "The system of land registration, as it exists in England, which long antedates the Land Registration Act 1925, is designed to simplify and to cheapen conveyancing. It is intended to replace the often complicated and voluminous title deeds of property by a single land certificate, on the strength of which land can be dealt with. In place of the lengthy and often technical investigation of title to which a purchaser was committed, all he has to do is consult the register; from any burden not entered on the register, with one exception, overriding interests, he takes free. Above all, the system is designed to free the purchaser from the hazards of notice - real or constructive - which, in the case of unregistered land, involve him in inquiries, often quite elaborate, failing which he might be bound by equities. The Law of Property Act 1925 contains provisions limiting the effect of the doctrine of notice, but it still remains a potential source of danger to purchasers. By contrast, the only provisions of the Land Registration Act 1925 with regard to notice are provisions which enable a purchaser to take the estate free from equitable interests or equities whether he has notice or not. (See, for example, section 3 (xv) "minor interests"). The only kind of notice recognised is by entry on the register.

"The exception just mentioned consists of "overriding interests" listed in section 70. As to these, all registered land is stated to be deemed to be subject to such of them as may be subsisting in reference to the land, unless the contrary is expressed on the register. The land is so subject regardless of notice actual or constructive. In my opinion therefore, the law as to notice as it may affect purchasers of unregistered land, whether contained in decided cases, or in a statute (the Conveyancing Act 1882, section 3, Law of Property Act, section 199) has no application even by analogy to registered land. Whether a particular right is an overriding interest, and whether it affects a purchaser, is to be decided upon the terms of section 70, and other relevant provisions of the Land Registration Act 1925, and upon nothing else. In relation to rights connected with occupation, it has been said that the purpose and effect of section 70 (1) (g) of the Land Registration Act 1925 was to make applicable to registered land the same rule as previously had been held to apply to unregistered land." The existence of overriding interests within the system of registered conveyancing might be troublesome for purchasers, but "What is involved is a departure from an easy-going practice of dispensing with enquiries as to occupation beyond that of the vendor and accepting the risks of doing so. To substitute for this a practice of more careful enquiry as to the fact of occupation, and if necessary, as to the rights of occupiers can not, in my view of the matter, be considered as unacceptable. I adhere to this, but I do not accept the argument which learned counsel for the appellant sought to draw from it. His submission was that, in applying section 70(1)(g), we should have regard to and limit the application of the paragraph in the light of the doctrine of notice. But this would run counter to the whole purpose of the Act. The purpose, in each system, is the same, namely, to safeguard the rights of persons in occupation, but the method used differs. In the case of unregistered land, the purchaser’s obligation depends upon what he has notice of - notice actual or constructive. In the case of registered land, it is the fact of occupation that matters. If there is actual occupation, and the occupation has rights, the purchaser takes subject to them. If not, he does not. No further element is material."
On the plain meaning of the words “actual occupation”, what is required is “physical presence, not some entitlement at law” these words are ordinary words of plain English, and should, in my opinion, be interpreted as such" and "the word "actual" merely emphasises that what is required is physical presence, not some entitlement in law" and 'undivided shares in land can only take effect in equity, behind a trust for sale upon which the legal owner is to hold the land.”
Land Registration Act 1925 70(1)
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Spectrum Investment Co Ltd v Holmes [1981] 1 All ER 6; (1980) 41 P & CR 133; [1981] 1 WLR 221
1981
ChD
Browne-Wilkinson J
Registered Land, Limitation
The plaintiff company acquired the registered freehold title of a house in 1957. The house was already demised on a long lease. The leaseholder had sublet to the defendant, who, by continuous non-payment of rent, had, by 1963, acquired a prescriptive title against her. In 1968 the defendant sought registration as proprietor of the leasehold interest and, in the absence of any response from the leaseholder's solicitors to the notice that they received, the Land Registry closed the registration of the latter's title, and opened a new registration of the defendant's title, describing the property as leasehold land held on the terms of the 1902 lease. Seven years later, in 1975, the leaseholder sought to defeat the defendant's title by executing a deed of surrender to the freeholder (a company controlled by her own family). Held: Browne-Wilkinson J said that the device, as it was admitted to be, failed, saying: "To my mind the words of section 75(1) are clear and unequivocal: the squatter claims to have acquired a title to 'a registered estate in the land' (ie the leasehold interest) and applies to be registered as a proprietor 'thereof' (my emphasis). Therefore under section 75(2), references to the squatter having acquired title to a registered estate must include the rights which under the Limitation Act 1939 the squatter acquires in relation to leasehold interests. Section 75(2) then refers to the squatter applying to be registered as proprietor 'thereof'. This word can, in my judgment, only refer back to the registered estate in the land against which the squatter has acquired title under the Act of 1939, ie the leasehold interest. The clear words of the Act therefore seem to require that, once the 12 years have run, the squatter is entitled to be registered as proprietor of the lease itself, and is bound to be so registered if he applies for registration. It follows that in my judgment the defendant (as the squatter) is correctly registered as proprietor of the lease itself in accordance with the clear requirements of section 75. If that is right, … [the leaseholder] cannot be entitled to rectification of the register as against the defendant, and she can therefore never get into a position in which she is competent to surrender the lease to the plaintiff."
Land Registration Act 1925 75

 
Lyus v Prowsa Developments Ltd [1982] 1 WLR 1044; [1982] 2 All ER 953
1982
ChD
Dillon J
Registered Land, Contract
The plaintiffs contracted to buy a plot of registered land with a house to be built on it. The developer had charged the estate as a whole to a bank to secure the development finance. The developer became insolvent and the bank sold the estate as mortgagee to the first defendant "subject to and with the benefit of" the plaintiff's contract. Three months later the first defendant resold the estate to the second defendant subject to the plaintiffs' contract so far if at all as it might be enforceable as against the first defendant. The transfer to the second defendant, which was duly registered, did not refer to the plaintiffs' contract. It was common ground that if the provision in the contract for the sale by the bank to the first defendant was adequate to impose a constructive trust on the first defendant then the effect of the provision in the contract for sale by the first defendant to the second defendant was to impose a similar trust on him. Held: Both of them had that effect.
Dillon J said: "Bearing in mind that there is no basis on which it could be suggested that the bank could be under any obligation to the plaintiffs to complete the house on Plot 29 for them, and bearing in mind the first defendant's solicitors' letter to Messrs Strutt and Parker, to which I have referred, I conclude that clause 11 was not inserted in the agreement of October 18, 1979, solely for the protection of the bank, like clause 7 of that agreement which sets out other matters subject to which the property was sold, and I conclude that it was a stipulation of the bargain between the bank and the first defendant that the first defendant would give effect in relation to Plot 29 to the contract which had been made between the vendor company and the plaintiffs."
He went on to discuss the effect of the 1925 Act: "It seems to me that the fraud on the part of the defendants in the present case lies not just on relying on the legal rights conferred by an Act of Parliament, but in the first defendant reneging on a positive stipulation in favour of the plaintiffs in the bargain under which the first defendant acquired the land. That makes, as it seems to me, all the difference. It has long since been held for instance, in Rochefoucauld v. Boustead [1897] 1 Ch. 196, that the provisions of the Statute of Frauds 1677 (29 Car. 2 c.3), now incorporated in certain sections of the Law of Property Act 1925, cannot be used as an instrument of fraud, and that it is fraud for a person to whom land is agreed to be conveyed as trustee for another to deny the trust and relying on the terms of the statute to claim the land for himself. Rochefoucauld v. Boustead was one of the authorities on which the judgment in Bannister v. Bannister [1948] 2 All E.R. 133 was founded.
It seems to me that the same considerations are applicable in relation to the Land Registration Act 1925. If for instance, the agreement of October 18, 1979, between the bank and the first defendant had expressly stated that the first defendant would hold Plot 29 upon trust to give effect for the benefit of the plaintiffs to the plaintiffs' agreement with the vendor company, it would be difficult to say that the express trust was over-reached and rendered nugatory by the Land Registration Act 1925. The Land Registration Act 1925 does not, therefore, effect the conclusion which I would otherwise had reached in reliance on Bannister v. Bannister and the judgment of Lord Denning M.R. in Binions v. Evans [1972] Ch. 359 had Plot 29 been unregistered land."
Land Registration Act 1925
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 Argyle Building Society v Hammond; CA 1984 - (1984) 49 P&CR 148
 
Russell v London Borough of Barnet [1984] 2 EGLR 44
1984


Registered Land
The Land Registry general boundaries rule operates so that although the land registry plan is placed inside a road, the ad medium filae presumption still operates as regards ownership of the soil.

 
Allied London Investments Ltd v Hambro Life Assurance Ltd (No 2) [1984] 1 EGLR 16
1984
ChD
Walton J
Landlord and Tenant, Registered Land
The lessors sued the original lessees for rent due under the lease after the term had been assigned to another. The lessors had given a licence to assign and the licence contained a guarantee from a third party to the lessors that the assignee would pay the rent etc. Subsequently the lessors released the guarantee. The original lessees contended that the release of that guarantee released them from their covenant in the lease to pay the rent. The obligation was in the following form: "The tenant for itself and its assigns and to the intent that the obligations may continue throughout the term covenants with the landlord as set out in the third schedule hereto." Held: The court rejected that contention: "it is quite clear that the position is not as between the assignee and the original lessee that of principal debtor and surety." The fact of assignment mattered "not one jot or tittle."
Land Registration Act 1925 24(1)
1 Citers


 
Mascall v Mascall [1984] 50 P & CR 119; [1984] EWCA Civ 10
13 Jun 1984
CA
Browne-Wilkinson LJ
Registered Land, Equity
The question was whether a gift of land was completely constituted by delivery of the land certificate Held: Equity will not come to the aid of a volunteer. Therefore, if a donee needs to get an order from a court of equity in order to complete his title, he will not get it. If, on the other hand, the donee has under his control everything necessary to constitute his title completely without any further assistance from the donor, the donee needs no assistance from equity and the gift is complete. It is on that principle, which is laid down in Re Rose, that in equity it is held that a gift is complete as soon as the settlor or donor has done everything that the donor has to do, that is to say, as soon as the donee has within his control all those things necessary to enable him, the donee, to complete his title. Milroy v Lord established that the settlor must have done everything that was necessary for him to do. In that case, however, the transfer had been put under the control of the donee.
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