Conveyancing in UK Law

It follows that if it becomes necessary to establish the exact boundary, the deeds will almost invariably have to be supplemented by such inferences as may be drawn from topographical features which existed, or may be supposed to have existed, when the conveyances were executed.

When a court is required to decide what property passed under aparticular conveyance, it must have regard to the conveyance as a whole, including any plan which forms part of it. It is from the conveyance as a whole that that intention must he ascertained.

In the present case the plan on the conveyance does help in that respect to solve an aspect of the problem of identifying the property conveyed which is not solved in any way by the very brief description of the parcels contained in the schedule. I am comforted to find that that conclusion coincides with indications of what the parties thought had happened which are to be found in the later conveyancing history, but I do not rely upon that as the basis of my decision.

That required a consideration of the February conveyance in the context of the surrounding circumstances in which it was granted, and having regard also to any evidence properly admissible for the purposes of its interpretation. It is, however, fundamental that the parcels clause in a conveyance should not be considered in isolation from the remainder of the document.

If one looks at the real nature of the transaction, there seems to me no doubt that Ferris J. was right in saying that the trustees and beneficiaries never at any time acquired the land free of Lady Ingram's leasehold interest. This is true and if, in addition to the leasehold estate which she reserved, Lady Ingram had obtained by covenant any additional benefits, as in In re Nichols, deceased [1975] 1 W.L.R. 534, they would have been benefits reserved.

In this case, the judge was rightly critical of what he also termed "sloppy conveyancing". I agree with his comment that this case illustrates the time and trouble which can be caused by sloppy conveyancing. It would have been far more satisfactory to the vendor, Mrs Joyce, if the boundary had been fixed in a proper manner before she sold 6 Chanton Drive to Mr Rigolli's predecessor in title.

The reality is that, in the vast majority of cases, the acquisition of the legal estate and the charge are not only precisely simultaneous but indissolubly bound together.