Property Practice
Property Practice is procedural: the sequence of a conveyancing transaction, from pre-contract enquiries through exchange and completion to registration.
Questions frequently test what a specific step in the process achieves legally, rather than asking candidates to recite the process from memory.
- Pre-contract searches, enquiries and title investigation
- Exchange of contracts and completion
- Registration requirements for registered land
- Leasehold transactions and landlord and tenant issues
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Written for this page only, in the same single best answer format as the 240+ questions in the Property Practice section of the course.
A buyer completes the purchase of registered freehold land with the help of a mortgage. Completion has taken place and the transfer has been signed, but before the buyer’s solicitor submits the application to register the transfer and the mortgage, a burglar unconnected with either party breaks into the property. Which of the following correctly describes the buyer’s position at the moment of the break-in?
For registered land, a transfer (and a legal mortgage) takes effect at law only once it is completed by registration. Before that, the buyer holds an equitable interest under the contract and completed transfer, even though completion has already taken place between the parties, and even though an unrelated third party’s act, such as a break-in, does not itself affect who holds which kind of interest during the registration gap.
Authority: Land Registration Act 2002, s.27.
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