Real Estate 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.

The principles applicable to the interpretation of a transfer of real property are not open to serious doubt. A transfer, like any other contractual document, must be interpreted in the light of the background facts reasonably available to the parties. Where the definition of the parcels in a conveyance or transfer is not clear, then the court must have recourse to extrinsic evidence, and in particular to the physical features on the ground.

It is quite plain from those authorities that if the owner of land requests another, or indeed allows another, to expend miner on the land under an expectation created or encouraged by the landlord that he will be able to remain there, that raises an equity in the licensee such as to entitle him to stay. Mr. Goodhart urged before us that the licensee could not stay indefinitely.

Generally speaking, adverse possession is possession which is inconsistent with and in denial of the title of the true owner. Possession is not normally adverse if it is enjoyed by a lawful title or with the consent of the true owner.

In order to come within the Act the grant has to be for one or more of the three purposes mentioned in section 2 i.e. for the education of poor persons, or for the residence of a schoolmaster or schoolmistress, or otherwise for the purposes of the education of such poor persons in religious and useful knowledge. But the Act does not expressly or impliedly require the grant either to be for all of those purposes or to be for purposes expressed in those very words.

It is not in doubt that under the 1939 Act as under the previous law, the person claiming by possession must show either (1) discontinuance by the paper owner followed by possession or (2) dispossession (or as it is sometimes called 'ouster') of the paper owner, Clearly, possession concurrent with the paper owner is insufficient.