Land Law in UK Law

If the law is to attribute possession of land to a person who can establish no paper title to possession, he must be shown to have both factual possession and the requisite intention to possess (" animus possidendi"). A person claiming to have "dispossessed" another must similarly fulfil both these requirements.

A resulting, implied or constructive trust—and it is unnecessary for present purposes to distinguish between these three classes of trust—is created by a transaction between the trustee and the cestui qui trust in connection with the acquisition by the trustee of a legal estate in land, whenever the trustee has so conducted himself that it would be inequitable to allow him to deny to the cestui qui trust a beneficial interest in the land acquired.

If I may expand that, Lord Cairns said: "It is the first principle upon which all Courts of Equity proceed", that it will prevent a person from insisting on his strict legal rights — whether arising under a contract, or on his title deeds, or by statute — when it would be inequitable for him to do so having regard to the dealings which have taken place between the parties, see Hughes v. Metropolitan Railway (1877) 2 A.C. at page 448.

The first and fundamental question which must always be resolved is whether, independently of any inference to be drawn from the conduct of the parties in the course of sharing the house as their home and managing their joint affairs, there has at any time prior to acquisition, or exceptionally at some later date, been any agreement, arrangement or understanding reached between them that the property is to be shared beneficially.

A balance has to be maintained between the right of the occupier to do what he likes with his own, and the right of his neighbour not to be interfered with. It is impossible to give any precise or universal formula, but it may broadly be said that a useful test is perhaps what is reasonable according to the ordinary usages of mankind living in society, or more correctly in a particular society.

Nevertheless most scholars agree that the doctrine is based on three main elements, although they express them in slightly different terms: a representation or assurance made to the claimant; reliance on it by the claimant; and detriment to the claimant in consequence of his (reasonable) reliance (see Megarry & Wade, Law of Real Property, 7th edition (2008) para 16-001; Gray & Gray, Elements of Land Law, 5th edition (2009) para 9.2.8; Snell's Equity, 31st edition (2005) paras 10-16 to 10-19; Gardner, An Introduction to Land Law (2007) para 7.1.1).

A trespasser who enters another's land may cause the landowner no financial loss. In this type of case the damages recoverable will be, in short, the price a reasonable person would pay for the right of user: see Whitwam v. Westminster Brymbo Coal Co. [1892] 2 Ch. 538, and the 'wayleave' cases such as Martin v. Porter (1839) 5 M. and W. 351 and Jegon v. Vivian (1871) L.R. 6 Ch. 742