Rectification – Indemnity – Claimant at fault
It will be recalled that, under section 83 of the Land Registration Act 1925, a claim for compensation may be made against the registrar by a person who has suffered loss as a result of the rectification, or as a result of the error or omission that had to be rectified. Until fairly recently, such a claim was ruled out by subsection (5), where, inter alia, the claimant had caused, or substantially contributed to, the loss by fraud or lack of proper care.
Following amendments made by the Land Registration Act 1997, the exclusion now applies to any loss suffered by a claimant “wholly or partly as a result of his own fraud or wholly as a result of his own lack of care”. The impact of the amendment was brought home by the decision of the Court of Appeal in Dean v Dean [2000] EGCS 76. The court refused to strike out a claim where the loss had been caused by a fraud on the claimant that would not have been possible if he had managed his affairs with due care. The repetition of “wholly” made it plain that the “but for” test, applied in the court below, was not the test that parliament had in mind when enacting the amendment.
Related item:
Prestige Properties Ltd v Chief Land Registrar [2002] EWHC 330 (Ch); [2002] 13 EG 98 (CS)
Rectification – Indemnity – Claimant at fault
It will be recalled that, under section 83 of the Land Registration Act 1925, a claim for compensation may be made against the registrar by a person who has suffered loss as a result of the rectification, or as a result of the error or omission that had to be rectified. Until fairly recently, such a claim was ruled out by subsection (5), where, inter alia, the claimant had caused, or substantially contributed to, the loss by fraud or lack of proper care.
Following amendments made by the Land Registration Act 1997, the exclusion now applies to any loss suffered by a claimant “wholly or partly as a result of his own fraud or wholly as a result of his own lack of care”. The impact of the amendment was brought home by the decision of the Court of Appeal in Dean v Dean [2000] EGCS 76. The court refused to strike out a claim where the loss had been caused by a fraud on the claimant that would not have been possible if he had managed his affairs with due care. The repetition of “wholly” made it plain that the “but for” test, applied in the court below, was not the test that parliament had in mind when enacting the amendment.
Related item:
Prestige Properties Ltd v Chief Land Registrar [2002] EWHC 330 (Ch); [2002] 13 EG 98 (CS)
