In the seventh century the court of chancery was no longer recognised as the court of chancery but as the court of equity. Furthermore, lawyers in those periods were being appointed as chancellor, there was a change were there was a reporting of decisions of the court and a system of precedent which moved to the development of a settled bodies of rights and remedies. The courts in the case of honywood v Bennett 1675 clearly stressed out that any contract which was without it being considered was not binding in equity.
Equity does not challenge the law but it does suggest that the common law courts are wrong. Although the rigidity is different in the sense that with common law the defendant is seen as the owner of land, whereas in equity the plaintiff is the owner and orders the defendant as the legal owner to deal with the land in a way that it would have been seen that the plaintiff in the true owner.
After the 1066 a uniform system was imposed on the whole England and Wales. Though things were attached to the land, an individual can never own the land itself as all land belonged to the crown which has been so since the Norman Conquest. William II was the owner of the land in that period he had tenants who then were known as tenants in chief because they held their grant straight from the king and there was some sort of a relationship which gave the tenants rights over land. These rights were limited as they did not have ownership over it, the rights allows them to be able to enjoy it they have to fulfil the kings needs such as they were expected to raise soldiers to support the kings military service and they are also expected to accept any duty when taking up his tenancy the tenant had to make a vow of fealty to his overlord and promised to honour these incidents.
However, the tenant in chief were issued out with a county chunk of land which they themselves could not mange by themselves. The tenants in chief had to create a small amount of land out of his estate and grant them to people who were prepared to accept orders from them “This was a feudal system that was common at the time”. The tenants had to pay their sub tenant’s money for the land and the sub tenant had to gather his proportion of money which would then be given to the overlord.
Gradually the feudal estate was abolished in the 13th century so that there would be no holding of any sort of land could be created except by the king as a result that land owners who issued land owners land rights to their sub tenants by granting certain estate packages of ownership rights rather than creating new ones with occurring feudal obligation. All of the tenants and sub tenants who owned a particular piece of land had to comply with the terms set, such as a person might grant another person an estate in fee simple in return for certain monies and services. A fee simple meant that an estate which was owed by another person could be inherited by his air, according to the standard rules on inheritance. A state for life was also included because it gave the sub tenant the right to enjoy the products of the land which would then be returned to the previous grantor.
The fee tail was very unpopular with people who owed a large amount of land because it only allowed land within the family in the sense that land could only be inherited from the owner if the heir is a member of the family. Moreover, it was also not popular with the king as it was seen as a threat to their power to enforce the law. This is so because it had counteracted the force of one of the main sanctions available to the king against any kind of control by wealthy families. It was accepted that if a person commits an allegiance towards another person’s country or sovereign his estate would be surrounded to the crown. Furthermore, with the fee tail being available nothing of value would be surrendered. But, if the person dies without living any heirs then his land would be returned to the former owner of the estate. The king made attempts to restrict the use of fee tail but these attempts were being blocked by landowners. The fee tail was also unpopular to land owners of relating means as they were unable to usefully sell a mortgage part of their estate to finance improvements and repairs to their own benefit which was actually what the fee tail was created to prevent. This created great tension between the king and major land owners.
In 1472 the owner of an entailed estate was allowed to take legal action against the grants to block a former condition which was known as a common recovery had changed the fee tail to the fee simple. The land owner who owned large ands with sentimental attachments to it which had been in the family for generations if this estate was left to a heir within that family they would be able to change from fee tail to fee simple and sell the estate outside the family. Trust was introduced to deal with the problem of recovery as it was used to deal with other problems.
In the medieval period the English common law accepted that a minor could not own an estate in land and could therefore not inherit it on the death of his father unless he was 21.” The land in such circumstances was held in wardship by the overlord. Wardship was attractive to the overlord because it gave him the income of that land without increasing his obligations to the king. Feudal tenants had to find ways to direct the benefit of the land to their families even when their heirs could not legally own land the way this was achieved was to transfer the estate to someone outside the family with the obligation that it would be used to the benefit of the family”. This device became known as use because land was held for the use of someone else. The new legal owner of the estate usually honoured his commitments to the grantors family, if he did not the beneficiary of the estate could not go to the ordinary common law courts for redress. The beneficiary of the estate had no legal rights that courts could enforce however the courts of equity had a greater discretion to act according to conscience than the common law courts. The beneficiary of use could therefore go to the chancery for a discretionary remedy if the legal owner of his estate refused to honour his commitments. The use became a very popular method for granting interests in land outside the restrictions of the common law. The beneficiary of a use had rights that were effectively rights of ownership and these rights could be bought and sold like common law rights, there developed two completely separate systems of land ownership the legal system enforced by the ordinary courts and the equitable system enforced by the chancery.
A property relates to things that can be owned and the law of property is concerned with a thing that is owned. A person can own a property that nobody else has any interest in he will be the owner and he would be able to use it and enjoy it as he wishes. However, the case of National provincial bank ltd v Ainsworth had defined propepritary right. Moreover, following the Judicature Act the courts are now required to give effect to legal and equitable rights.
By the beginning of the 20th century the law be came complex in the sense that many legal land interest were being recognised future interests as well as the freehold and lease hold. The use of trust was to accomplish objectives that could not be accomplished by legal means as did the widespread use of legal fictions such as the trust for sale. In 1925 the land registration act [LRA] was introduced which suggested that land had to be registered in order for it to be enforceable which includes legal and equitable interests. This is now combined with Land registration Act 2002 .Most of the provisions of the1925 reforms remain in effect today. This reform had happened because the law of property [LPA] had abolished all forms of estate of land apart from the fee simple absolute in possession and the term of years absolute.
Finally without some general understanding of the historical development of English property law and in particular of the influence of equity it would be very difficult to make sense of the Morden law because there was not enough remedies available at that time for an individual to use, the remedies were being limited especially for damages and the common law was difficult to distinguish from the correct remedies to use as the law then was absurd until the development of equity.
Word count: 2,000
Reference
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Burn, E.H. (2000). “Morden law of real property”. (16th edition) London; Butterworth
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Chappelle, D. (2004). “Land law”. (6th edition). Edinburgh gate; Pearson education limited
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Gray, K & Gray, S F. (2003). “Land law”. (3rd edition). United Kingdom; LexisNexis, Butterworth
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Penner, J.E. (2002). “The law of trusts”. (3rd edition). United Kingdom; LexisNexis, Butterworth
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Todd, P. (1996). “Equity and trusts”. (5th edition).Great Britain; Blackstone press limited
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Boone, K., [2007] The k-zone. “Equity and trus”t Retrieved November 29, 2007, from http://www.kevinboone.com/lawglos_Equity.html
The law of trusts and equitable obligations [1995] chp1 p4-5
The law of trusts and equitable obligations [1995 chp1 p4-5-6
Land law[2003] 3rd edition chp1 p8
Land law. [2004] 6th edition. Chp1 p31
The law of trusts [2002]. 3rd edition. Chp1 p5-6
The law of trusts and equitable obligations [1995] chp1 p6
honywood v Bennett 1675 www.westlaw.com
The law of trusts and equitable obligations [1995] chp1 p 16-17
Land law. [2004] 6th edition chp 2 p83
Morden law of real property[2002] chp1 p24
The law of trusts [2002]. 3rd edition chp1 p5-6
Land law[2003] 3rd edition chp1 p18-19-20
Land law. [2004] 6th edition chp2 p49
The law of trusts [2002]. 3rd edition chp1 p5-6
Equity and trusts [1996] 5th edition chp 11 p165
The law of trusts and equitable obligations [1995] chp2 p86-87
Morden law of real property[2002] chp3 p83
Morden law of real property[2002] chp 3 p88-89