[Solved] The register should be a complete and accurate reflection of the state of the title to the land at any given time. It sho

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[Solved] The register should be a complete and accurate reflection of the state of the title to the land at any given time. It should be possible to investigate title to land online, with an absolute minimum of additional enquiries and inspections

UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMME IN LAW

LL5004 PROPERTY LAW

Please keep a copy of your essay on disk and a paper copy.

Your attention is specifically drawn to the offences of plagiarism, cheating and collusion in the university assessment regulations.

 MAXIMUM WORD LIMIT: 2500 WORDS (not including footnotes and bibliography).

Question 1

“The register should be a complete and accurate reflection of the state of the title to the land at any given time. It should be possible to investigate title to land online, with an absolute minimum of additional enquiries and inspections”

Law Commission, Land Registration for the Twenty-First Century: A Conveyancing Revolution (Law Com No 271, 2001) para 1.5.

With reference to this stated objective of the Land Registration Act 2002, explain how the 2002 Land Registration Act has further developed the ‘mirror principle’ in registered land.

The feudal system introduced the Law of Property Act (LPA 1925).  This legislation was designed to simplify the conveyancing in property law, the main aim of this was to ensure all information relating to land law was in one place.  The Land Registration Act 1925 (LRA) and Land Charges both managed registered and unregistered land.

We will now look at how the Land Registration act 1925, has further developed and was repealed and replaced by the Land Registration Act 2002.  

The system in place for registration of legal land and any interests was the LPA 1925, however this legislation removed a number of sections from the Law of Property Act.   Although the LPA 1925 had many irregularities in relation to overriding interests. Overriding interests were difficult to identify, however under S3 LRA 1925 these interest would have a legal hold on all who are involved. 

Now that we can also deal with land electronically, the objective of the new legislation was to create a register that should be a true and accurate image of the legal land title.  With this in place, it would be possible to examine the title to the land electronically with ease. 

The LRA 1925 had many inadequacies, as a result, it struggled to meet the aims it set out to achieve.  As a result, the LRA 1925 was repealed and replaced to make way for LRA 2002.

The specific aim of the LRA 2002 was to ensure that it was compulsory for the title of a land to be registered[1].  Martin Dixon stated that the aim of the title registration was to change the system to be in line with modern society[2]. The proposed home buyer should only require the Land Registration to find details pertaining to the property they want to purchase, including fixtures and fittings.  This document would be vital to online conveyancing services, whereby there would be ease of access. This process removed the need for any third party interests.

There’s an element that the LRA 2002, is somewhat ‘transaction driven’ for the simplicity of conveyancing.  The aim is to ensure that the land and the proposed purchasers do not experience any issues during the conveyancing process.  The LRA is solely based on a three tier principle, which is the Mirror Principle, curtain principle and insurance principle; these principles should mirror the information and items relating to the land.  Mirror principle, must be an accurate picture of the land and fixtures.  The curtain principle is the concept that land registration may allow certain equitable interests attached to the land hidden from a purchaser`s view.  The Insurance Principle is that the state insures against inaccuracies or other mistakes in the register. For example: if "A" is the true freehold owner of the land, but "B" is registered with the title by innocent mistake, and then C buys the land from "B" on the basis of his registered title as guaranteed by the LRA 2002, it is obvious that either "A" or "C" will suffer by reason of application of the registration system. The `insurance` principle stipulated that a registration system must provide compensation in such cases.  With these principles in situ, it places certainty for the purchasing parties.