The registered land comprised a shop subject to a restrictive covenant restricting sale of tobacco products and sweets. By mistake, the covenant was not noted in the Register. The (unregistered) leasehold of the premises was assigned to purchasers who wished to sell such products: since the covenant was not registered they had no notice of it. The beneficiary of the covenant then successfully applied to the Chief Land Registrar for the Register to be rectified so as to include notice of the covenant on the Charges Register. On appeal the purchasers asserted that notwithstanding the rectification the covenant was not binding on them. The beneficiary of the covenant sought an injunction.
Held: (ex tempore) The claims failed. Walton J was surprised that rectification had been ordered in the first place, but in any event its effect was not to bind the purchasers. Part of the argument turned on the construction of section 50(2) of the 1925 Act, providing that an incumbrance would affect the title only from the date that it was entered on the Register. Counsel for the beneficiary of the covenant had submitted that that was inconsistent with the general scheme of the Act. Walton J rejected that submission, saying: ‘It appears to me that the general scheme of the Act is that one obtains priority according to the date of registration, and one is subject, or not subject, to matters appearing on the register according to whether they were there before or after one took one’s interest, whatever that interest might be. That seems to me to be the only sensible way in which the provisions of the Act can all be made to mesh together.’ He continued: ‘the Act is clear . . it is only matters that are actually registered at the time that the disposition is made which affect the person who derives title under the registered proprietor.’
Judges:
Walton J
Walton J
Citations:
[1976] Ch 288
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Gold Harp Properties Ltd v Macleod and Others CA 29-Jul-2014
The company appealed against an order re-instating to the register leases which the company said it had forfeited for non-payment of rent. After the forfeiture, the landlord had granted new leases. It appealed saying that exceptional circumstances . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Registered Land
Updated: 17 June 2022; Ref: scu.535827