General Principles of Land Law, Fixtures, Chattels

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 Land Law Essay                                                                                                Student No.0900091

1)

  The first essay question considers the issues of fixtures and chattels during the process of

 conveyancing of the property. There is abundance of case law in this particular area, and there is quite a few of well established principles. Although many of the cases vary according to their own facts. Land and chattels are treated differently in law. Land is real property, and chattels are more of a personal property. A contract to sell property does not include items of personal property, unless they are expressly included. Sometime an item which once was a chattel may turn into the fixture, and this is when the doubts arise. The statutory provision dealing with this issue is Law of Property Act 1925, s.62.

  So, if Fred and Wilma are able to prove that the items are fixtures, and that Mr. Stone removed them after the exchange of the contracts they should be able to recover.

  Basically there are two tests to determine whether an item has become part of the freehold. First one is so-called: 'the method and degree of annexation'. The second one concentrates on 'the object and purpose of the annexation'. The  earlier law was using the first of the tests, while later cases developed the second test, mainly to alleviate injustice where limited owners had affixed items of values to the land. In nowadays second test is the predominant one. Hence, if the item is physically annexed to the land it does not solve the problem any more. Yet the degree of annexation remains the important aspect. Accordingly to Scarman LJ in Berkley v Poulet, if there is such a degree of physical annexation that an object cannot be removed without serious damage to, or some destruction, of the realty, then there is a strong case for the item to be classified as fixture.

  It is not clear whether the plasma screen was physically fixed to the land, and it is impossible to  deduce it from the text. If the case is that it is merely standing in the land, then prima facie, the plasma screen is not a fixture.

In the case of Berkley v Poulet itself, a white marble statue of a Greek athlete weighing half a ton and standing on a plinth, was considered not to be a fixture. I think I can go so far and compare the case of the statue with the case of a massive plasma screen. Nevertheless the general rule can be displaced where the object of annexation can be shown to be that it was intended that the item should become part of the land. Hence, in the case of Holland v Hodgson a drystone wall which was construed of blocks of stone one on top of another was held to have been intended to become part of the realty. Intention refers to the purpose which the object serves, not to the purpose of the person who put the object in place.

However in this case, regardless of the question whether the plasma screen is physically affixed to the land, it would seem probable that the screen remains a fixture anyway. In D'Eyncourt v Gregory it was stated that if item can be viewed as a part of the permanent architectural design of the house it gives a strong argument for the item to be a fixture. Coursework question clearly states that to convert the part of the house into the cinema Mr.Stone had to employ a firm of builders. Thus, it can be deducted that the plasma screen might be a 'fixed' part of the architectural design of the house.

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The tip-up seats are annexed to the ground, and apparentely they cannot be easily removed without any damage to the property. The object of their annexation is to make the room useful as a mini-cinema. In fact, there would seem to be no question as to their intrinsic merit as chattels. The cinema seats were installed for the more convenient use of the property, not to their use as chattels. In Vaudeville Electric Cinema Ltd v Mauriset, seats secured to the floor of a cinema hall were fixtures. Normally, free-standing seats would be considered chattels. Here, however, they were affixed ...

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