A registered land transfer is a sub-species of written instrument; and the principles that apply to the interpretation of written instruments apply equally to land transfers.
Rimer LJ said: ‘That required a consideration of the February conveyance in the context of the surrounding circumstances in which it was granted, and having regard also to any evidence properly admissible for the purposes of its interpretation. It is a statement of the obvious that the crucial provision in the conveyance was the parcels clause, since it was there that the parties identified the land being conveyed. It is, however, fundamental that the parcels clause in a conveyance should not be considered in isolation from the remainder of the document. It is a general, and basic, principle of the construction of documents that questions of interpretation should be answered by considering the document as a whole, since only then can the provision giving rise to the question be seen in its proper context. There can be no reason for this principle not to be equally applicable in relation to the interpretation of a conveyance for the purpose of identifying the limits of the land conveyed by it.’
. . And: The formula ‘for the purpose of identification only’ is one whose use is time-honoured. Its ordinary sense is that a plan so described is intended to do no more than identify the position and situation of the land: it is specifically not intended to identify its precise boundaries. The use of such a plan is therefore strictly only appropriate for a case in which the verbal description in the parcels identifies the limits of the land with adequate precision since it is a formula which indicates that the verbal description is intended to be decisive in that respect. Such a plan ‘cannot control the parcels in the body of any of the deeds’ (Hopgood v Brown [1955] 1 WLR 213, at 228, per Jenkins LJ); it ‘cannot therefore be relied upon as delineating the precise boundaries and in any case the scale is often so small and the lines marking the boundaries so thick as to be useless for any purpose except general identification’ (Wibberley, supra, per Lord Hoffmann).’
Judges:
Rimer LJ
Citations:
[2008] EWCA Civ 384, [2008] 2 P and CR 8
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Drake and Another v Fripp CA 3-Nov-2011
The parties disputed the location of the boundary between their properties. An appeal against the adjudicator’s award altering the filed plan.
Held: The appeal failed: ‘there was no restriction on the adjudicator’s power to direct the Land . .
Cited – Drake and Another v Fripp CA 3-Nov-2011
The parties disputed the location of the boundary between their properties. An appeal against the adjudicator’s award altering the filed plan.
Held: The appeal failed: ‘there was no restriction on the adjudicator’s power to direct the Land . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Registered Land
Updated: 14 July 2022; Ref: scu.266985