Mrs T, by summons under section 17 sought a declaration that she and her husband were beneficial owners in equal shares of the matrimonial home and that the premises should be sold and the proceeds divided equally between them. She registered a lis pendens under the Land Charges Act. The house was in the husband’s name.
Held: Her interest was, at best, a share in the proceeds of sale of the house and was not an interest in land (which under the Act, was defined not to include ‘an undivided share in land,’) and it vacated the registration in exercise of its inherent jurisdiction. The court has both statutory and inherent jurisdiction to order vacation of an entry on the register on ‘other good cause’, and the inherent jurisdiction of the court is co-extensive with that of the High Court.
Russell LJ said: ‘The lis (the dispute) is not about any land, but about what is the entitlement to the beneficial interest in the land, and therefore the proceeds of sale. The purpose of registration of a lis pendens is to prevent effective disposition of the land pendente lite. How can a suit which demands that the land be disposed of be properly registrable? . . how could it be said . . that a purchaser with notice of a lis, in which there was no reference to the land except a demand that it should be sold by the defendant, could get a defective title?. . If the wife’s claim . . had been made in a writ and statement of claim, the lis could not possibly have been properly registrable.’
Judges:
Russell LJ
Citations:
[1968] 1 WLR 378
Statutes:
Married Women’s Property Act 1882 17, Land Charges Act 1925
Cited by:
Cited – Nugent v Nugent ChD 20-Dec-2013
The court was asked whether the court has, following the the 2002 Act, an inherent power to order the cancellation of a unilateral notice registered against a title registered under the 2002 Act and, if so, in what circumstances, and how, such a . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land
Updated: 04 May 2022; Ref: scu.519752