06 July 2023
With regard to basic land law, there are a few key areas to understand:
The law of tenure deals with the way in which land is held. Land includes anything which is built on the land as well as any right attaching to the land e.g. a right of way.
Rights of ownership to land can be held in two ways:
It’s important to be aware of commonhold; a system which allows a number of units to share a freehold e.g. a development of flats. Previously such units needed to have leasehold units.
While owning a property, it is possible that others may have certain rights over it, called ‘interests’, and these can be legal or equitable.
An easement, a legal interest, is a right over land e.g. the right to use the land of another, and requires two pieces of land in different ownership. It gives the owner of the land benefiting from the easement the right do something on or over the land of someone else. Examples include:
Easements can be expressly granted in a written document or may arise because someone has used the land of another over an extended period of time. Easements are passed from one owner to the other and may have valuation consequences.
A freehold covenant, an equitable interest, can be restrictive (negative) thus stopping the owner of other land from using that land in some way e.g. restricting residential property from business use. A restrictive covenant is passed from one owner to the next, like an easement. A positive covenant commits the owner of land to do something e.g. to fence boundaries, but will not automatically pass with land when sold. Freehold covenants may therefore have a bearing on market appraisals.
Categories: Residential Sales Residential Lettings General Law