What the subject covers
Land Law sits in FLK2 Session 1 with wills, trusts and accounts, and it feeds directly into Property Practice in the other session. The specification runs from what can be owned in land, through who else has rights over it, to whether those rights survive a transfer.
Estates and interests
The freehold and the leasehold estate, the interests that can exist at law — easements and mortgages granted for the right duration and in the right form — and the wider category of equitable interests, including beneficial interests under a trust, estate contracts and equitable easements.
Alongside sits the distinction between fixtures and chattels, which sounds minor and reliably produces a question about what the seller was entitled to remove.
Registered and unregistered title
This is where the marks concentrate, because it decides who wins.
- Registered land: the three parts of the register, the triggers for first registration, the basic rule that a registrable disposition for value takes free of unprotected interests, the protection given by a notice or a restriction, and the overriding interests that bind regardless — particularly the rights of a person in actual occupation.
- Unregistered land: a good root of title, the classes of land charge and the effect of registering or failing to register one, and the residual doctrine of notice for interests outside the scheme.
- Overreaching: how paying capital money to two trustees sweeps beneficial interests off the land and onto the proceeds — the answer to a large share of priority questions.
Co-ownership
The trust of land that arises whenever land is co-owned, the difference between a joint tenancy and a tenancy in common in equity, the four unities, severance and its methods, and the court’s powers when co-owners disagree about a sale — including the factors it must consider and the position of a secured lender.
Easements, covenants and mortgages
- Easements: the characteristics of an easement, acquisition by express grant or reservation, by implication, and by prescription, and how an easement binds a purchaser.
- Covenants: the burden and the benefit at law and in equity, the requirements for the burden to run, and modification or discharge.
- Mortgages: creation, the lender’s remedies and the order in which they are used, the protections for the borrower, and undue influence where a third party has given security.
Leases
What makes a lease rather than a licence — exclusive possession for a term at a rent — the formalities for creating one, the covenants implied between landlord and tenant, the consequences of assignment and subletting, and the ways a lease ends, including forfeiture and the tenant’s right to relief.
Where the marks go
- Registered or unregistered. The same facts produce different answers, and the question tells you which system applies for a reason.
- Actual occupation. Candidates treat it as a trump card. It is a question of fact with conditions attached, and overreaching beats it.
- Severance. Whether the share passes by survivorship or into the estate decides the whole answer, and it is examined alongside wills and estates.
- Legal or equitable. How the interest was created determines how it is protected, and candidates skip straight to the protection.
Revise it immediately before Property Practice: the transaction guide makes far more sense once priority does. The rest of FLK2 is mapped in the FLK2 subject guide.