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 existed to justify the non-rectification, and that the judge had erred in giving the revived leases priority.
Held: The appeal failed. The Court (and the Registrar) had the power to remove from the Register a derivative interest created by a person who at the material time was, albeit as the result of a mistake, the registered proprietor, and in that sense – without prejudice to whether this is a relevant sense – to make a ‘retrospective’ order.
Underhill LJ said: ‘What paragraph 8 permits (for the future) is ‘changing the priority’ of an interest. What an interest having priority means is that the owner can exercise the rights which he enjoys by virtue of that interest to the exclusion of any inconsistent rights of the owner of the competing interest. The concept of priority thus bites at the moment that those rights are sought to be enjoyed. Once that is appreciated the effect of the words ‘for the future’ seems to me straightforward. They mean that the beneficiary of the change in priority – that is, the person whose interest has been restored to the Register – can exercise his rights as owner of that interest, to the exclusion of the rights of the owner of the competing interest, as from the moment that the order is made, but that he cannot be treated as having been entitled to do so up to that point.’
Richards, Sullivan, Underhill LJJ
[2014] EWCA Civ 1084, [2014] WLR(D) 345
Bailii, WLRD
Land Registration Act 2002 28 29
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Freer v Unwins Ltd ChD 1976
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 . .
Cited – Argyle Building Society v Hammond CA 1984
The registered freehold proprietor (S) of a property lived abroad, his mother having power of attorney. His sister and her husband, Mr and Mrs Hammond, had the register altered to show themselves as the freehold proprietors. The primary case was . .
Cited – Egan v Central Manchester and Manchester Children’s University Hospitals NHS Trust CA 15-Dec-2008
The claimant, a nurse employed by the defendant, appealed against the refusal of her claim for personal injury suffered operating a hoist whose wheels jammed when they hit a plinth in the floor. No risk assessment was in place.
Held: The judge . .
Cited – Norwich and Peterborough Building Society v Steed CA 5-Mar-1992
The land-owner had given his mother power of attorney over his home. Her signature was forged on a transfer, and the transferee executed a charge in favour of the appellant. Transfer and charge were registered. A first line of cases restored the . .
Cited – Clark and Another v Chief Land Registrar and Another ChD 2-Dec-1992
The defendant had made a mistake resulting in an equitable chargee not being given proper opportunity to object to the registration of a further charge with priority. The chargee sought compensation from the defendant registrar.
Held: The . .
Cited – Clark and Another v Chief Land Registrar and Another; Chancery Plc v Ketteringham CA 5-May-1994
A caution gives a right to be notified of an application, but does not give any priority on registration. . .
Cited – Parkash v Irani Finance Ltd ChD 1970
A search by an intending chargee had not revealed the existence of a caution on the register which protected a charging order. When the chargee attempted to register the charge, the cautioner was informed. It objected to the registration.
Cited – Hayes v Nwajiaku ChD 10-Jun-1994
One of two joint proprietors of registered land forged the signature of the other and sold the property. The purchaser charged it to mortgagees who had no notice of the forgery.
Held: The original proprietor was entitled to have the Charges . .
Cited – Malory Enterprises Ltd v Cheshire Homes (UK) Ltd and others CA 22-Feb-2002
The applicant said that its land had been misappropriated, and sought rectification of the register against the respondent who was a successor in title having bought the land from the wrongdoer.
Held: On registration, section 69 operated to . .
Cited – Fitzwilliam v Richall Holdings Services Ltd ChD 28-Jan-2013
The claimant said that his property had been sold by someone falsely purporting to be his agent under a forged power of attorney. . .
Cited – Pinto v Lim ChD 19-Apr-2005
The parties had been owners of a property. The defendant was thought to have forged a transfer of the house into her sole name, and then sold on the property to her brother, who was innocent of the forgery. The claimant, on returning to England . .
Cited – Barclays Bank Plc v Guy ChD 16-Jan-2008
The defendant owned development land in Manchester. Under a transfer apparently signed by him the land came to be registered in the name of a company called Ten Acre Ltd, creating a charge in favour of Barclays Bank, which was duly registered on the . .
Cited – Barclays Bank Plc v Guy CA 9-Apr-2008
The bank had sought and obtained an order recognising the vaidity of its charge over the land. The land had belonged to the defendant, but he said that the property had been registered by a fraudulen ttransfer, and charged by the transferee in the . .
Cited – Guy v Barclays Bank Plc CA 8-Dec-2010
In an earlier action the claimant said that he had been defraused of land by a forged transfer. The transfereee had charged the land to the respondent bank who in that action gained a decision that its charge was effective, the transfer being . .
Cited – Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd v Olympia Homes Limited, Hughes etc ChD 17-Jun-2005
The claimant sought rectification of the land register. In a development deal, an option agreement had not been registered, and the land sold on. The land was required to allow the building of a roundabout necessary for the intended store. An . .
Mentioned – Taylor v Lawrence CA 4-Feb-2002
A party sought to re-open a judgment on the Court of Appeal after it had been perfected. A case had been tried before a judge. One party had asked for a different judge to be appointed, after the judge disclosed that he had been a client of the firm . .
Cited – Ajibade v Bank of Scotland Plc (Formerly Halifax Plc), Endeavour Personal Finance Limited (Alteration and Rectification of The Register) LRA 8-Apr-2008
LRA Rectification of the register – Fraud – ‘Correcting a mistake’ – second charge – Schedule 4 Paragraph 5(1)(a) of the Land Registration Act 2002
Ms Ajibade was the registered proprietor of a leasehold . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Registered Land
Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.535398