26. What is land?

Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on Land Law provides an accessible overview of one key area on the law curriculum. This chapter discusses the definition of ‘land’. It covers the statutory definition; earth, minerals, buildings, and fixtures; hereditaments; real and personal property; and flying freehold. It also addresses hydraulic fracturing (fracking). The chapter concludes with some remarks about a practical approach to land law.

23. Priorities in relation to mortgages and charges

Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on Land Law provides an accessible overview of one key area on the law curriculum. This chapter explains the rules relating to priorities between successive mortgages and charges and between mortgages and charges and other estates and interests in land. It covers the priorities of mortgages of an equitable interest; the priorities of mortgages of a legal estate; the priorities of three or more mortgages; mortgagee’s right to tack further advances; and interests prior to the mortgage.

21. Special rights in relation to the family home

Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on Land Law provides an accessible overview of one key area on the law curriculum. This chapter brings together some matters about the family home, and provides additional information about certain statutory rights which members of a family may have in respect of their homes, contrasting the rights of married couples and civil partners with the more limited rights of cohabitants. In conclusion, the chapter outlines proposals for reform of the law relating to cohabitants’ rights in the family home.

20. Licences and their enforcement

Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on Land Law provides an accessible overview of one key area on the law curriculum. This chapter considers the nature of a licence of land. It discusses how to distinguish a lease from a licence, and how to distinguish an easement or profit from a licence. It then discusses enforcement against the licensor; enforcement against successors of the licensor; and whether licences are becoming interests in land. The issues covered are also applied to two licensees in Trant Way: Henry Mumps and Bob Bell are each living in property owned by another member of their family.

19. Proprietary estoppel

Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on Land Law provides an accessible overview of one key area on the law curriculum. This chapter examines the doctrine of proprietary estoppel. It discusses the nature of proprietary estoppel; the expectations of future rights; the criteria for proprietary estoppel; essential elements; satisfying the equity; the nature of the equity arising from estoppel; and the relationship between proprietary estoppel and constructive trusts.

17. Co-ownership

Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on Land Law provides an accessible overview of one key area on the law curriculum. This chapter discusses rules relating to the co-ownership of land. It covers joint tenancy; tenancy in common; creating a tenancy in common of the beneficial interest under a trust; the cases of Stack v Dowden and Jones v Kernott; the severance of a joint tenancy; the relationship between co-owners; and the ending of co-ownership.

3. Buying a house

Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on Land Law provides an accessible overview of one key area on the law curriculum. This chapter discusses the acquisition of a fee simple estate in land. It first describes the two freehold properties that are currently for sale in Trant Way, Mousehole, Stilton. It then explains two systems of title and provides an outline of the conveyancing process.

16. Perpetuities and accumulations

Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on Land Law provides an accessible overview of one key area on the law curriculum. This chapter provides a brief account of the ‘perpetuities and accumulations’ rules. It discusses future interests; the old perpetuities rules; legislative modifications before 2010; the breadth of the application of old rules; rules about the period for which income can accumulate in a trust; and the Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 2009.

8. The freehold estate

Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on Land Law provides an accessible overview of one key area on the law curriculum. This chapter examines the case of David Derby, owner of the freehold estate in 4 Trant Way, who has decided to give the estate to one of three relations and is considering three possible dispositions. It is necessary to consider whether each of these three possible gifts would vest in the person concerned a legal fee simple absolute in possession, or would create an interest in land which is less than a legal estate. The phrase ‘fee simple absolute in possession’ imposes a series of requirements, all of which must be satisfied if the estate is to qualify as a legal one. The chapter examines these requirements in more detail, and considers whether the proposed gifts would satisfy them. The chapter contains a short consideration of commonhold.

7. Acquisition of an estate by adverse possession

Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on Land Law provides an accessible overview of one key area on the law curriculum. Another way to acquire an estate in land is by adverse possession. The Land Registration Act 2002 (LRA 2002) made major changes to the process of acquiring registered land by adverse possession, but the old rules continue to apply to unregistered land (and registered land where the period of adverse possession was completed before the new Act came into force). This chapter considers what is required to establish adverse possession, and then uses the example of another house in Trant Way to illustrate the three systems in operation: adverse possession of unregistered land; adverse possession of registered land under LRA 1925; and the new system of adverse possession of registered land established by LRA 2002. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the human rights issues arising from adverse possession.