An interest in land may have legal or equitable status. How does one determine the status of an interest in land and what is the significance of this distinction?

As an introduction, you may wish to explain what an 'interest in land' actually is. Identify it as a proprietary right and explain the general significance of this in relation to the person who owns the interest and the land over which it is exercised.

You may also wish to briefly identify the historical background as to how the distinction between legal and equitable interests arose. Within this discussion you may recognize that some interests have capacity to be either legal or equitable, whilst others can only ever be equitable.

Focus should then turn to how you determine the exact status of an interest.

• Consider the closed list of interests that have legal capacity under s 1(2) LPA 1925.
• Identify the formalities that must be complied with to make interests that have the capacity to be legal actually legal. Key authorities include s 52 LPA 1925; s 1 LP(MP)A 1989; s 27 LRA 2002. What happens if those formalities are not satisfied? Explain that an equitable interest may arise instead, but only where formalities required by equity are satisfied. Key authorities include s 2 LP(MP)A 1989; Walsh v Lonsdale (1882).
• Identify those interests that can only have equitable status: s 1(3) LPA 1925. Discuss briefly relevant formalities.

Focus should then turn to the significance of the actual status of an interest.

• Consider the remedies available when an interest has been infringed. What difference does it make to the availability of remedies where the interest infringed is equitable as opposed to legal?
• Consider how, traditionally, the status of an interest was a key factor in determining the rules to be applied when assessing whether the interest was enforceable against a third party. This will require a brief analysis of the doctrine of notice.
• Today, to what extent is the status of an interest as either legal or equitable significant in determining whether that interest can be enforced against a third party? This requires a brief analysis of rules of enforcement for both registered and unregistered land.