Law Express: Land Law

John Duddington

• Editore: Pearson
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781292295312
• Edizione: 8
• Argomento: Diritto
• Categoria: Didattica in ambito legale

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• Understand how to review essential cases, statutes, and legal terms
  
  

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John Duddington was Head of the Law School at Worcester College of Technology before retiring to focus on writing and research. He also teaches property law at the University of Worcester.

1

The building blocks of land law:

estates and interests in land

Revision checklist

Essential points you should know:

•What the terms ‘estate’, ‘freehold’ and ‘leasehold’ mean

•Types of legal interests and equitable interests in land

•When a legal interest binds a third party

•When an equitable interest binds a third party

•When overreaching can apply and its consequences

Topic map

A printable version of this topic map is available from go.pearson.com/uk/lawexpress

Long Description

The topic at the top are fixtures, fittings, and what is land? These topics are followed by estates in land which is followed by freehold estates, commonhold, and leasehold estates. The topic interests in land leads to legal interests and equitable interests which leads to overreaching. The independent topic is Human Rights Act1998.

Introduction

You must know what the fundamental terms mean and which rights can be estates and which can be interests.

Registered land is also, of course, a building block of land law, but you cannot progress to it unless you have mastered the fundamentals in this chapter.

This chapter and the next (on registration of title to land) should be thought of as one: this chapter is the essential foundation and it then leads on to either registered or unregistered land.

Assessment advice

Essay questions

An essay question will probably ask you either to:

•look at the distinction between legal estates and legal and equitable interests and explain their significance; or to

•look at the background to the development of land law as it is today. (This answer may require knowledge of other areas dealt with in subsequent chapters such as land registration rules (see Chapter 2).)

Problem questions

You are less likely to get a problem question purely on the material in this chapter, as it is introductory, with the exception of the law on fixtures and fittings. However, in a problem question on either registered or unregistered land, you will require a sound knowledge of the material here.

What is land?

The starting point is the definition of land in section 205(1)(ix) of the Law of Property Act (LPA) 1925. This contains the following key definition: ‘Land . . . and mines and minerals, whether or not held apart from the surface’ – land is not just the actual surface but also the land below and the air space above. This is often expressed by the old maxim: ‘cuius est solum eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos’ (‘he who owns the land owns everything reaching up to the very heavens and down to the very depths of the earth’). This statement read literally means that whoever has a legal estate in land owns not only the surface of that land but also the airspace above the land to an unlimited extent and the land below also to an unlimited extent.

In Bocardo SA v Star Energy UK Onshore Ltd (2010) Star Energy had a licence to search for and get petroleum. Its predecessors had drilled three wells diagonally, which entered the substrata below land owned by Bocardo at depths of up to 2,900 feet below ground level but this did not interfere with Bocardo’s enjoyment of its land. Nevertheless, Star Energy was held liable for trespass. One issue was the extent to which rights of landowners extended beneath the surface. Lord Hope referred to arguments that the rights should only extend to 1,000 feet below but rejected any definite limit.

The law on rights to the airspace above the ground is different in some respects. Section 76(1) of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 provides that no action shall lie in respect of trespass or nuisance, by reason only of the flight of an aircraft over any property at a height above the ground, which, having regard to wind, weather and all the circumstances of the case is reasonable. In Bernstein v Skyviews and General Ltd (1978) a claim by a landowner for trespass in respect of flights over his house for aerial photography was rejected. The court held that a landowner only owns such airspace necessary for the reasonable enjoyment of the land.

Impress your examiner

There is a growing literature on subterranean land rights. See Turner (2011).

There is a basic distinction in land law between corporeal hereditaments and incorporeal hereditaments.

Corporeal hereditaments

The land and what is attached to the land.

Incorporeal hereditaments

Rights over land. These include easements and profits.

Fixtures and fittings

Fixtures are objects which are fixed to the land in such a way as to be part of it. Fittings are not.

Some physical objects are treated as part of the land itself. These are known as fixtures and so when the land is sold anything that is a fixture is sold with it. Other objects are treated as fittings (often referred to as chattels) and are not treated as part of the land. When land is sold, sellers, to avoid disputes, usually provide lists of what are fixtures and fittings.

Botham v TSB Bank plc (1996) gives useful guidance on...