Eric Walker and Another v Peter Burton and Another
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Mummery,Lord Justice Jackson,Lord Justice McCombe |
| Judgment Date | 14 October 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWCA Civ 1228 |
| Docket Number | Case No: A3/2012/1033 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 14 October 2013 |
[2013] EWCA Civ 1228
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
CHANCERY DIVISION
MR JEREMY COUSINS QC sitting as a Deputy Judge of the Chancery Division
CH2011/0158
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Mummery
Lord Justice Jackson
and
Lord Justice McCombe
Case No: A3/2012/1033
Mr Paul Stafford and Miss Naomi Winston (instructed by The Law Partnership Solicitors LLP) for the Appellants
Mr Jeffrey Littman (instructed under the Bar's Public Access Scheme) for the Respondents
Introductory
The setting
Even in the Chancery Division it is rare for the chronology of a case to date back to the mid-13 th century. This is one of those rare cases. It is about the impact of recent changes to the modern system of land registration on surviving legal fragments of the social, economic and administrative institution of manorialism. The Lordship of the Manor was for centuries the basic unit in the legal structure of feudal relations and land tenure in England. Now, a Lordship can no longer be registered as "land." Although classified as an incorporeal hereditament, it remains relevant to what can be registered as land: for instance, in determining what land is registrable as waste of the manor.
In 1254 a charter of Henry III granted lands in parts of Lancashire to the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem. The case chronology tracks the history of that religious order to its dissolution in 1540 and the confiscation of lands by the Crown. That is followed by the restoration of the Order under Philip and Mary and further changes of fortune in the later Tudor period. Then there is a long history of Lancashire families, notably the Tathams and then the Martons, acquiring, settling and transmitting Lancashire landholdings from the 17 th century almost down to the present day.
After four pages of dates and events we reach the present century and the outbreak of litigation about manorial rights in the tiny village of Ireby (population 60). It is situated at or near the highest point in Lancashire and close to the county boundary with West Yorkshire. In the history of the Lordship of the Manor of Ireby there are glimpses of the vast and varied landscape of real property law starting with s.1 of Quia Emptores 1290, which, still in force and relevant, forbids the creation of new tenures on the grant of a fee simple (i.e. no sub-infeudation creating new manors); passing through phases of strict settlements of family estates; and finishing with paragraphs 5 and 6 of the 4 th schedule ("Alteration to the Register") to the Land Registration Act 2002 ("the 2002 Act"), which confer on the Registrar power, other than pursuant to a court order, to alter the Land Register for the purpose of correcting mistakes.
On this second appeal the court has to consider the circumstances in which the corrective power may be exercised in the case of the mistaken registration under the 2002 Act of 362 acres of moorland. It is described as waste of the Manor of Ireby and is called Ireby Fell. "Waste" in this context refers, in general, to manorial lands that were less fertile than the rest of the manorial holdings and therefore usually open, uncultivated, and unoccupied. The local community enjoyed the manorial waste as a communal resource. The main use was as common pasture for sheep and cattle grazing. Manorial waste was distinct from the demesne land of the Lord of the Manor and from surrounding land held of the Lord by manorial tenants, who cultivated it as arable or laid it down to grass: see Hampshire CC v. Milburn [1991] 1 AC 325 at 338 B-E per Lord Templeman; Corpus Christi College Oxford v. Gloucestershire CC [1983] QB 360; and Crown Estate Commissioners v. Roberts [2008] EGLR 165 at [9] per Lewison J.
At the heart of this appeal is a perceived illogicality in the decisions below on rectification of the register. It was held both at first instance and on the first appeal to the High Court that, on the one hand, the mistaken registration of the Lordship of Ireby should be rectified by closing the register, but, on the other hand, the mistaken registration of Ireby Fell, which was identified as waste of that Lordship, should not be rectified. The result was that the rightful owner of the Fell (probably the Crown) was not substituted for the persons mistakenly registered as its proprietors (i.e. the respondents to this appeal, Mr & Mrs Peter Burton). The causal connection between the mistaken registration of the Lordship and the mistaken registration of the Fell is said to be so close and immediate that the appellants were surprised when they were notified that their application to alter the register had different outcomes in the case of the Lordship (i.e. mistake corrected) and the Fell (i.e. mistake not corrected).
Detailed issues arise from the statutory circumstances in which the title of a registered proprietor in possession of land may be protected from rectification of the register, having regard to two particular factors: (a) whether lack of care on the part of the Burtons caused or contributed to the mistaken registration of the Fell; and (b) whether it would be unjust not to correct the mistake (i.e. untying the double negative, whether it would be unjust to reject the appellants' application to correct the mistaken registration of the Burtons by closing the Fell title). The appellants failed on the lack of care issue and on the injustice issue at each lower level of decision.
The dispute
14 lever arch files of historical materials were examined at a 10 day hearing in April, July and August 2010 before the Deputy Adjudicator, to whom the application had been referred by the Land Registry. There was a site inspection. Extensive written submissions were generated by the litigation between irate villagers in Ireby (the applicants/appellants) and the Burtons, who are more recent newcomers to the village. The focus of the appeal is on the Fell situated to the north of the village and of the lovely way into West Yorkshire along the A65 from Kirby Lonsdale to Skipton.
This unlovely dispute is between the appellants, who live in the village, and the Burtons, who live in Over Hall on the edge of the village. On Mr Burton's retirement from a successful career in banking, the Burtons purchased (along with 39.25 acres of land) and restored the dilapidated 17 th century Over Hall Farmhouse. They subsequently registered the Lordship of the Manor as theirs. Then they claimed that Ireby Fell was also theirs as waste of their Manor and they got themselves registered as proprietors of it. They set about asserting and enforcing their newly registered rights in and around the village and over the Fell. The Lordship activities did not make the Burtons popular with some residents in the village, including the appellants.
At this point I must underline some critical legal distinctions: first, between the title to the Lordship, which is an incorporeal hereditament ( not land), and the title to the Fell, which is land: secondly, between those titles and the title to rights of common over the Fell, which are not in issue in this litigation. The rights of common were protected by registration over 30 years ago. The issue in this case was whether the Burtons' sequential registrations of the Lordship of the Manor and of the Fell should be rectified by closing both of them on the ground that those registrations were mistaken and ought to be corrected. So far the appellants have had a measure of success: the title to the Lordship has been closed, but they failed on the Fell.
The appeals
This appeal is about whether there was an error of law in the decision of the Deputy Adjudicator on 10 December 2010 not to close the Burtons' registration of title to the Fell. In the same decision he had directed that the registration of their title to the Lordship of the Manor should be closed. The Burtons have not appealed from that decision or from the findings of fact on which it was based.
The Deputy High Court Judge, who heard the first appeal over 4 days, dismissed it on 17 April 2012, as he could not find any error of law in the decision appealed.
Both the Deputy Adjudicator and the Deputy High Court judge have considerable expertise in this specialised field. I would pay tribute to their learning and to their skilful handling of the historical materials in their judgments. As they appreciated and as, I hope, the parties appreciate, this case is not a local research project in historical scholarship. The Deputy Adjudicator and the Deputy Judge were required to deliver judgments on a legal dispute, in which they had to apply the law to a limited selection of salient historical facts established by evidence on the balance of probabilities. Nearly all the historical material is interesting. Very little of it is of direct legal relevance. I mention this because both sides have spent a great deal of time, effort and money on investigating the history of the Lordship of Ireby.
Applications to rectify the register
At the end of the 800 year time-line of rural, local and family history is the 4 th schedule to the 2002 Act. This appeal turns on the construction and application of its provisions to the facts found by the Deputy Adjudicator. There is no longer any issue that registration mistakes were made in the case of both the Lordship and the Fell. The issue on this third round of the appellants' application to correct the...
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