Assignment Brief
As part of the formal assessment for the programme you are required to submit a Law of Property assignment. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.
Learning Outcomes:
After completing the module you should be able to:
1. Identify and define the various property rights that exist in relation to land.
2. Compare and classify estates and interests existing in the registered land
system together with their priorities and dealings with third parties
3. Evaluate the present principles of English Land Law showing an awareness
of areas where reform is needed and Law Commission recommendations.
4. Demonstrate the ability to identify key elements of legal problems, identify their relative significance and select appropriate methods for investigating and
evaluating them.
Your assignment should include: a title page containing your student number, the module name, the submission deadline and a word count; the appendices if relevant; and a reference list in OSCOLA format. You should address all the elements of the assignment task listed below. Please note that tutors will use the assessment criteria set out below in assessing your work.
Maximum word count: 4000 words
Please note that exceeding the word count by over 10% will result in a reduction in grade
by the same percentage that the word count is exceeded.
You must not include your name in your submission because Arden University operates anonymous marking, which means that markers should not be aware of the identity of the student. However, please do not forget to include your STU number.
Warning:
QLD Regulations require that unfair practice findings are referred to the SRA (Solicitors Regulation Authority) and BSB (Bar Standards Board) and can prevent admission as a barrister or a solicitor. Take your referencing seriously. Do not risk your career.
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PART A
Critically analyse whether the law relating to adverse possession has been changed fundamentally by the Land Registration Act 2002.
Use case law, examples and legislation in your answer.
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(2000 words) (50 marks) (LO’s 1-4)

PART B
Read the following scenario and official copies (separate document) carefully. Then answer the four questions, questions 1-4, under the scenario. You must answer ALL four questions. (2000 words)
You are a trainee in the firm of Arden LLP. Your supervising partner James Parker has passed you a letter from a client, Alan George together with Official Copies of the registered title of ‘’Cottage Villa’’. Your supervising partner would like you to prepare four separate file notes dealing with each of the four points raised in that letter. The purpose of the file notes is to set out the legal arguments, supporting case law and statutory provisions which will be relied upon when running the file. The file notes will be used by fee-earners looking at the file in order quickly to give them a reference point of relevant law.
Cottage Villa Park view Cambridgeshire
Dear Sirs
Further to my conversation with you today I write to agree your terms of business which you sent to me by e-mail, and I set out below the various matters that are a cause of concern for me:
1. I reside at Cottage Villa, a property which I inherited, together with my twin brother Andrew and younger sister Hannah from our late uncle Michael. My Uncle’s Will had
provided for us to have the proceeds of sale divided between us, but we decided, instead to keep the property because we all enjoyed visiting our uncle there, we all lived fairly close to there, we were all renting at the time and the property market at the time meant it made sense to wait a while. So, we decided to keep the property as co- owners, and all moved in together. I am not sure how we own the property but think the official copies will help. The arrangement worked well for us: none of us would have been able to afford to buy a property by ourselves, so having a property mortgage and rent free has been wonderful. Fortunately, we all get on well. However, our lives have now moved on: I am engaged to be married and Hannah has recently moved to Sweden to work. I want to be able to sell Cottage Villa so my fiancé and I can buy a home together using my share of the money from the sale of the Cottage Villa together with the money I have saved and, perhaps, topped up with a mortgage.
Andrew does not want to sell because Cottage Villa is spacious, convenient, and familiar, most of his friends are local and he loves the area. The area has seen a recent upturn in prices which means that I would estimate that Cottage Villa would achieve in the region of £890,000. I think that I would be due a greater sum than either my brother or sister because I have been the one to pay maintenance costs (such as repairing the conservatory roof and replacing the boiler). Andrew has never had the money to be able to contribute and whilst Hannah paid towards daily costs whilst she was living at Cottage Villa (such as council tax and utility bills), she never had the savings available to cover the unexpected costs such as the new boiler, so those expenses fell to me. I know that Andrew has felt guilty at his inability to contribute much, and he has done what he can by doing the garden, cooking meals using the lovely vegetables he grows and doing most of the cleaning. Because of the upturn in prices in the area I doubt that Andrew would be able to afford another home in the locality. I do not think Andrew has used his time living at Cottage Villa to boost his savings, and as an artist his income is neither regular nor great, so I doubt he could get a mortgage. I do feel bad at asking Andrew to move out, but I cannot afford to buy and keep a marital home as well as keeping Cottage Villa, and I also find myself feeling aggrieved that the one who has contributed the least is benefiting the most.
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Hannah is undecided on whether she would want to sell or not: sometimes she says it would be good for her to have a home here to come back to once her contract in Sweden has ended (it is a two year minimum term but she says it will probably be renewed as it was once previously), and on other occasions she says she is unlikely to live in England ever again and could use the money to buy a flat in Sweden. Is there any way I can force the sale of the property or can Andrew stop me? Is there anything I need to do before I can sell?
2. Two of Andrew’s friends, Francis (who lives around 3.5 miles away) and Peter (who lives just across the road from the Cottage) told me that if I try to sell the property, they
will claim an easement over the back garden of the Cottage Villa. They claim that for many years they have used the back garden as a right of way shortcut to get onto a footpath to walk their dogs by the river. I suspect that Andrew has put them up to it, so as to try to frustrate any attempts to sell, but I would like reassurance that Francis and Peter could not claim any such rights that might make the property less attractive to buyers. I know that Francis only started coming to Cottage Villa after Hannah, Andrew and I moved here, but Peter has lived just across the road since shortly after my Uncle’s bought the Cottage Villa in the 1970s. I remember him walking through the garden with his dog when I visited as a young child. Surely, if any rights do exist, the solicitor who acted for us when the property was assented to us would have told us about them?
3. Andrew is very friendly with our immediate neighbours, who have only a small garden. Andrew has invited them to “share” our vegetable garden. Andrew likes the
idea of company in the garden and help with the work of the garden, but I do not like the idea of having the neighbours just show up in the garden without notice. Do I have to tolerate this, or can I tell the neighbours that they cannot treat our garden as their own? Andrew says that they will share the work and cost of seeds and that there is more than enough space for us all to have enough vegetables from the garden. I have a sneaking suspicion that the neighbours may have paid Andrew for the use of the garden, because Andrew is very defensive when I talk to him about this “arrangement”. I hope that he has not arranged some kind of lease or licence. Please tell me that I can stop this arrangement and that this will not be detrimental to any sale of the property.
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4. The fence on our eastern boundary has fallen. The same neighbours (as discussed in 3 above) have told us that strictly speaking we are in breach of obligations to keep
our fence on our eastern boundary (between us and the neighbours) in repair. I seem to remember that there was something on the Official Copies about a covenant but am not sure. The neighbours, like the fence being down as it facilitates their use of our garden. The neighbours would like a gate to be put up instead of a solid fence, and for that they will contribute £150 towards the cost. I would rather not have the expense of repairing the fence, but I also don’t want the neighbours coming into the garden as they please – do I have to repair the fence? Surely, I do not have to put a gate up rather than a fence just because the neighbours want me to? I don’t want to encourage the neighbours to come into the garden. I hope you can advise on these matters.
Yours truly
