Law of Property - Document Analysis Assignment

Assignment Brief - As part of the formal assessment for the programme you are required to submit a Law of Property assignment. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.

Learning Outcomes: After completing the module you should be able to:

1. Identify and define the various property rights that exist in relation to land.

2. Compare and classify estates and interests existing in the registered land system together with their priorities and dealings with third parties.

3. Evaluate the present principles of English Land Law showing an awareness of areas where reform is needed and Law Commission recommendations.

4. Demonstrate the ability to identify key elements of legal problems, identify their relative significance and select appropriate methods for investigating and evaluating them.

Assignment Task -

You are a trainee in the firm of Arden LLP. Your supervising partner Angus Adams has passed you a letter from a client, Bertie Brown together with Official Copies of the registered title of "The Spinney". Your supervising partner would like you to prepare four separate file notes dealing with each of the four points raised in that letter. The purpose of the file notes is to set out the legal arguments, supporting case law and statutory provisions which will be relied upon when running the file. The file notes will be used by fee-earners looking at the file in order quickly to give them a reference point of relevant law. Each of the four numbered points in the letter constitutes a question bearing 25% of the overall mark. Each of these questions address learning outcomes 1-4. You must answer all FOUR questions.

Further to my brief conversation with you today I write to agree your terms of business which you sent to me by e-mail, and I set out below the various matters that are a cause of concern for me:

1. I live at The Spinney, a property which I inherited, together with my twin brother (James) and younger sister (Claire) from our late uncle George. My Uncle's Will had provided for us to have the proceeds of sale divided between us, but we decided, instead to keep the property because we all enjoyed visiting our uncle there, we all lived fairly close to there, we were all renting at the time and the property market at the time meant it made sense to wait a while. So, we all moved in together. The arrangement worked well for us: none of us would have been able to afford to buy a property by ourselves, so having a property mortgage and rent free has been wonderful. Fortunately, we all get on well. However, our lives have now moved on: I am engaged to be married and Claire has recently moved to Germany to work.

I want to be able to sell The Spinney so my fiancé and I can buy a home together using my share of the money from the sale of the Spinney together with the money I have saved and, perhaps, topped up with a mortgage. James does not want to sell because The Spinney is spacious, convenient and familiar, most of his friends are local and he loves the area. The area has seen a recent upturn in prices which means that I would estimate that The Spinney would achieve in the region of £950,000. I think that I would be due a greater sum than either my brother or sister because I have been the one to pay maintenance costs (such as repairing the conservatory roof and replacing the boiler). James has never had the money to be able to contribute and whilst Claire paid towards daily costs whilst she was living at the Spinney (such as council tax and utility bills), she never had the savings available to cover the unexpected costs such as the new boiler, so those expenses fell to me. I know that James has felt guilty at his inability to contribute much, and he has done what he can by doing the garden, cooking meals using the lovely vegetables he grow, and doing most of the cleaning.

Because of the upturn in prices in the area I doubt that James would be able to afford another home in the locality. I do not think James has used his time living at The Spinney to boost his savings, and as an artist his income is neither regular nor great, so I doubt he could get a mortgage. I do feel bad at asking James to move out, but I cannot afford to buy and keep a marital home as well as keeping The Spinney, and I also find myself feeling aggrieved that the one who has contributed the least is benefiting the most.

Claire is undecided on whether she would want to sell or not: sometimes she says it would be good for her to have a home here to come back to once her contract in Germany has ended (it is a two year minimum term but she says it will probably be renewed as it was once previously), and on other occasions she says she is unlikely to live in England ever again and could use the money to buy a flat in Germany.

Is there any way I can force the sale of the property or can James stop me? Is there anything I need to do before I can sell?

2. Two of James' friends, Lenny (who lives around 4.5 miles away) and Stephen (who lives just across the road from the Spinney) told me that if I try to sell the property they will claim a right of way over the back garden of the Spinney. They claim that for many years they have used the back garden as a shortcut to get onto a footpath to walk their dogs by the river. I suspect that James has put them up to it, so as to try to frustrate any attempts to sell, but I would like reassurance that Lenny and Stephen could not claim any such rights that might make the property less attractive to buyers. I know that Lenny only started coming to the Spinney after Claire, James and I moved here, but Stephen has lived just across the road since shortly after my Uncle's bought the Spinney in the 1970s. I remember him walking through the garden with his dog when I visited as a young child. Surely, if any rights do exist, the solicitor who acted for us when the property was assented to us would have told us about them?

3. James is very friendly with our immediate neighbours, who have only a small garden. James has invited them to "share" our vegetable garden. James likes the idea of company in the garden and help with the work of the garden, but I do not like the idea of having the neighbours just show up in the garden without notice. Do I have to tolerate this or can I tell the neighbours that they cannot treat our garden as their own? James says that they will share the work and cost of seeds and that there is more than enough space for us all to have enough vegetables from the garden. I have a sneaking suspicion that the neighbours may have paid James for the use of the garden, because James is very defensive when I talk to him about this "arrangement". Please tell me that I can stop this arrangement and that this will not be detrimental to any sale of the property.

4. The same neighbours have told us that strictly speaking we are in breach of obligations to keep our fence on our eastern boundary (between us and the neighbours) in repair, but that as the fence being broken down facilitates their use of our garden they would like a gate to be put up instead of a solid fence, and for that they will contribute £200 towards the cost. I would rather not have the expense of repairing the fence, but I also don't want the neighbours coming into the garden as they please - do I have to repair the fence? Surely, I do not have to put a gate up rather than a fence just because the neighbours want me to?

Note - Please advise on these matters. Maximum word count: 4000 words.