Title to land – Boundary – Alteration of register – Land Registration Act 2002 – Applicant and respondent owning adjoining properties – Dispute over ownership of land on boundary – Applicant found to have no legal title to disputed area but only beneficial interest under bare statutory trust – Deputy adjudicator removing area from respondent’s title but refusing to add it to applicant’s title – Whether applicant requiring private law standing to apply for alteration of respondent’s title – Whether applicant having such standing – First ground of appeal dismissed
The applicant applied to the Land Registry, under para 5 of Schedule 4 to the Land Registration Act 2002, to alter the register to remove certain land from the respondent’s registered title and have it registered in her own name. The land in question lay along the boundary between the parties respective properties. The respondent objected and the matter was referred to the deputy adjudicator. The adjudicator found that the applicant did not have a legal title to the land but only a beneficial interest under a bare statutory trust, created when a transfer to her had become void for failure to register it within two months. He further found that she had not acquired a possessory title in her own right. He allowed the application to remove the land from the respondent’s title but dismissed the application to have it registered in the applicant’s name.
The respondent appealed from the first of those decisions. His grounds of appeal included a contention that the applicant lacked the necessary legal standing to argue that any land should be withdrawn from the respondent’s title, being an owner of land only in equity and not at law; he submitted that only the legal owner could advance such an argument. That ground was the subject of a separate judgment of the court.
Held: The first ground of appeal was dismissed.
As a matter of law, there was no requirement for an applicant for rectification to have private law standing. The procedural rules and powers of the court were more than adequate to prevent vexatious or abusive applications. The statutory provisions for rectification contained no requirement that the applicant for rectification should have standing, in the sense of a competing claim. Further, since anyone could object to first registration, it would be anomalous if standing were required for subsequent rectification of a registered title: Burton & Bamford v Walker (decision of Land Registry adjudicator REF/2007/1124) applied; Wells v Pilling Parish Council [2008] EWHC 556 (Ch); [2008] 2 EGLR 29; [2002] 22 EG 174 distinguished; Wilson v Keeper of the Registers of Scotland [1999] SCLR 872 not followed. The decision in Wells was constrained by the concessions made by the parties to that case and Wilson, being a Scottish case, was not a binding precedent requiring an applicant for rectification under the English statutory code to have private law standing. Accordingly, the perceived difficulties faced by a beneficial owner simply did not arise. Further, there was no distinction between an absolute and a possessory title in that regard. There was no limitation on who could apply to rectify. In any event, the applicant had standing in all the circumstances of the case.
Colin Elliott (instructed by Borlase & Co, of Helston) appeared for the applicant; Charles Auld TD (instructed by Hine Downing Solicitors, of Falmouth) appeared for the respondent.
Sally Dobson, barrister