Understanding property register

heebie-jeebies

I have a question regarding the property register describing the land in the title plan.

One of the 4 points says:
"the land tinted pink on the filed plan or an unascertained part thereof was formerly copyhold of the Manor of.... and the rights saved to the lord by the 12th Schedule of the Law of Property Act 1922 are excepted from the registration".

What does this mean?

We asked our conveyancer when we received the title plan 2 weeks ago if the pink land is therefore not part of the property but she said it was and there is nothing to be concerned about. I just can't get my head around the rights being saved to someone - I tried to read the Law of Property Act too but that didn't help.

Has anyone else come across this and is it something I need to worry about?

AdrianC

It is your land - but the Lord of the Manor reserved some rights to it when the plot was originally sold off.

Sch12, Laws of Property Act 1922 has been repealed...
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/12-13/16/schedule/12
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1969/52

Whether any of those reserved rights are still enforceable is another question entirely. Unless you're planning to discover oil under your back garden, they're unlikely to be any kind of issue, even if they are.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/historical-rights-that-could-affect-your-property/historical-rights#manorial-rights

Land_Registry

AdrianC has included some links to assist but some additional background may help if you wish to research the subject further

Copyhold was a form of land tenure. A series of Acts allowed owners to enfranchise the land ie. turn it into freehold, the class of title we now associate with the vast majority of properties, culminating with the LPA 1922.
However, the Lord of the Manor could retain some rights. These rights included the right to retain mines and minerals for example, which AdrianC hints at in his post above. When applicable we have to make an entry on the register making it clear that such retained rights are excepted (excluded) from the registration and this is the case with your entry.

Lord Denning defined a manor for legal purposes as follows:-
“In medieval times the manor was the nucleus of English rural life. It was an administrative unit of an extensive area of land. The whole of it was owned originally by the lord of the manor. He lived in the big house called the manor house. Attached to it were many acres of grassland and woodlands called the park. There were ‘demesne lands’ which were for the personal use of the lord of the manor. Dotted all round were the inclosed homes and land occupied by the ‘tenants of the manor’. They held them by copyhold tenure. They were nearly equivalent to freehold, but the tenants were described as ‘tenants of the manor’. The rest of the manorial lands were the ‘waste lands of the manor’. the tenants of the manor had the right to graze their animals on the waste lands of the manor.” (Lord Denning MR in Corpus Christi College Oxford v Gloucestershire County Council, [1982] 3 AER 995).

So the land is part of your property but certain rights over it may exist in favour of the manor. You will not be alone in being affected as a manor can stretch for miles of course.

This additional Practice Guide may shed some wider light on the subject for you as well

heebie-jeebies

Thank you both for taking the time to reply.

I'd read up on parts of it but the links provided by AdrianC are exactly what I was missing.

The house is on an estate built in the mid 80s so I assume it affects all of the houses on the road.

AdrianC

heebie-jeebies wrote: »

The house is on an estate built in the mid 80s

Which makes the references to the 1922 act even stranger, since it was repealed in 1969. But I s'pose that could have been carried over from whatever covenants were on the land when it was sold off by the manor between '22 and '69.

Either way, I don't think I'd stress about it.