What exactly are the limits of the jurisdiction of the First-tier Tribunal? If asked to decide whether one of the parties to a relationship has a beneficial interest in a property registered in the name of the other, can the tribunal go on to quantify their respective interests?
The point arose in Hallman v Harkins [2019] UKUT 245 (LC), following an application to register a restriction to protect a beneficial interest in the parties’ home. The house was registered in the name of Mr Hallman, but his former partner, Ms Harkins, claimed that she had acquired a beneficial interest in the property. When Mr Hallman objected to the application to register the restriction, the dispute was referred to the First-tier Tribunal under section 73(7) of the Land Registration Act 2002 (the 2002 Act).
It decided that Ms Harkins had acquired a beneficial interest, and went on to quantify her share because the parties invited it to do so. But the Upper Tribunal ruled that the First-tier Tribunal should not have considered the point (even though it had advised the parties that its decision would not bind them), because it did not have the jurisdiction to do so. So the “determination” of the parties’ respective interests had no effect on their rights and obligations.
The Upper Tribunal explained that section 99 of the Land Registration Act 2002 requires the Land Registry to deal with “the business of registration”. And the question for the Registrar had been whether it was necessary or desirable to enter a restriction on the register to protect an interest that was capable of being overreached or a right or claim in relation to the registered estate: see section 42.
The Upper Tribunal accepted that the Land Registry had needed to consider whether there was an interest to protect, but ruled that it had been unnecessary for it to consider the extent of the parties’ interests in order to decide whether to register a restriction or not. No part of the ”business of registration” is concerned with the quantification of beneficial interests, and none of the forms of restriction in Schedule 4 of the Land Registration Rules 2003 make provision for information about the extent of any such interest.
Similarly, the First-tier Tribunal’s jurisdiction is limited to determining matters referred to it pursuant to section 73(7) of the 2002 Act, and rule 40 of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Property Chamber) Rules 2013 requires the First-tier Tribunal to direct the Registrar either to give effect to an application for a restriction or to cancel it. It cannot arrogate any wider jurisdiction to itself – and does not have the power to make declarations concerning the beneficial interests under a trust of land. Furthermore, Essex County Council v Essex Incorporated Congregational Church Union [1963] AC 808 confirms that “no consent can confer on a court or tribunal with limited statutory jurisdiction any power to act beyond that jurisdiction, or can estop the consenting party from subsequently maintaining that such court or tribunal has acted without jurisdiction”.
The better course would have been for the First-tier Tribunal to direct one of the parties to commence proceedings in court to obtain a binding decision in a single forum, not only on the matter referred to it by the Registrar but on all connected questions.
Allyson Colby, property law consultant
