Property Law (Ordinary)

LAWS08133

Director of Examinations: Dr. Elisenda Casanas Adam

Course Organiser: Dr Andrew Steven
External Examiner: Dr Andrew Simpson, University of Aberdeen

This examination will be marked anonymously.

Students are encouraged to read all of the instructions. These will help you to complete your take
home examination and minimise difficulties when uploading your assessment.

If you have any questions, please contact the Undergraduate Office by email at:
Law.UGO@ed.ac.uk

The mailbox will be monitored from 8:30am – 5:30pm Monday to Friday and 10am – 2:00pm BST
on Saturday 9th May 2020 and Sunday 10th May 2020. We will liaise with the Course Organiser on
your behalf regarding academic questions to ensure your anonymity is retained.

The take home examination questions begin on page 3.

Method of Submission

All work will be submitted via LEARN (the University’s Virtual Learning Environment).
Please note that Internet Explorer and Safari are not compatible with Learn and Turnitin and
therefore should not be used. We strongly advise you to use Chrome or Firefox web
browsers when uploading assessments.

If you need assistance in advance of submissions, please contact the Undergraduate Office. If
you have any problems submitting, please send your submission via email to the Undergraduate
Office (Law.UGO@ed.ac.uk). Your email must be received before the specified deadline or it will
not be accepted.

Students must use the answer template provided to submit their answers. The template can be
found on the course Learn page in the Assessment Submission and Feedback folder. The words in
the template will not count towards your answer word limit.

Page 1 of 6
Formatting your Examination

The answer template is a form, so you will not be able to change the formatting of your answers
(for example adding bold or italics). The markers are aware of this and it will not affect marking.

Penalties for Late Submission

Please note as this is a take home examination, late submissions will not be accepted and
the submission space will close at the deadline.

If you experience technical difficulties that prevent you from submitting your assessment, you
should email your completed work to Law.UGO@ed.ac.uk

To allow for any potential system delays or internet issues, you are strongly encouraged to
upload your completed work in advance of the deadline – remembering that this task
should not take you the whole 48 hours to complete.

Extensions and Special Circumstances

It is not possible to request an extension for a take home examination.

If you experience technical difficulties that prevent you from submitting your assessment before
the submission space closes, you should email your completed work to Law.UGO@ed.ac.uk
along with an explanation as to why you were unable to submit in advance of the deadline. The
Director of Examinations and Director of Undergraduate Studies will assess these on a case-by-
case basis and confirm by return email if your examination has been accepted.

As previously advised, you do not need to submit Special Circumstances for your take home exam
or summative assessments based on Covid-19 unless you have been uniquely impacted by an
additional disruption, for example if you’re suffering ill health personally. You should submit an
application for Special Circumstances if this unique impact has significantly disrupted your ability to
participate in or submit this assessment.

We encourage you to get in touch with your Personal Tutor or the Student Support Office
(Law.SSO@ed.ac.uk) for advice and support.

Academic Misconduct and Plagiarism

Students should be aware that as this is a take home examination, you are not expected to write
your response like a research essay and therefore there is no need for a bibliography. Students
should only use references to the extent they would have included them in the exam.

Students are expected to work independently on their examination script. Students should be
aware that collusion is a serious form of academic misconduct and they are expected to adhere to
good academic practice skills in approaching their take home examinations.

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 The Take Home Examination

 Candidates are required to answer ANY FOUR (4) questions.

 Each question is worth 25 marks.
 Total word count: 3500

1. Dana decides to develop her estate for tourism purposes. She plans to construct a small
railway on it. Dana would like to run a section of the railway through neighbouring land
belonging to Jean. She wants to enter into an arrangement with Jean which will remain
effective if Jean sells her land.

(a) Advise Dana on how this could be achieved.

[5 marks]

(b) Could Dana have any implied right to use Jean’s land for this purpose?
[4 marks]

Dana also wants to attract people to fish in the river which forms part of the boundary to her
estate. The estate on the other side of the river is owned by Peter and they co-own the
salmon fishing rights in respect of that part of the river.

(c) Can Dana grant valid leases of the salmon fishing rights entitling individuals to fish
exclusively on certain weekends?
[4 marks]

In order to protect the salmon fishing, Dana would like to prevent people from canoeing in this
part of the river. A local councillor points out that there has been canoeing there for over thirty
years.

(d) Does Dana have the right to stop the canoeing?

[6 marks]

Dana also plans to construct a cricket ground on her estate. Playing cricket there will cost a
fee and Dana wants to keep anyone who has not paid the fee from entering onto the ground.

(e) Advise Dana as to whether the public have any right to come onto the cricket ground.

[6 marks]

2. In 2002 Valerie buys a house in a new development near Glasgow. The builder is Modern
Construction Ltd. She lives there happily until the house next door is sold in 2020 to Neil.
Shortly after moving in, Neil parks his large delivery van in the driveway at the front of his
house. This takes away much of the light reaching Valerie’s living room.

Valerie checks the title sheets for both houses. In the respective dispositions granted by
Modern Construction Ltd when these were originally sold there is an identical real burden
prohibiting the parking of commercial vehicles. The disposition in respect of Neil’s house
was registered in May 2002 and the disposition in respect of Valerie’s house in June 2002.

(a) Can Valerie enforce the burden against Neil?

[9 marks]

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 (b) Would it make a difference to your answer to (a) if rather than being in the
dispositions the burden was in a deed of conditions affecting the whole development?
[5 marks]

(c) Would it make a difference to your answer to (a) if Neil were a liferenter and not an
owner?
[3 marks]

Valerie discovers that the water supply for Neil’s house is through a pipe under her garden.
No servitude right in respect of this is mentioned in either her or his title sheet.

(d) Could a servitude of water supply have otherwise been created?

[5 marks]

(e) Assume that in fact there is no servitude right. Is Valerie entitled to cut off the water
supply?
[3 marks]

3. On 10 January 2020 Peter agrees to sell part of his land to Rachel. He grants her a
disposition which has a plan annexed to it showing the part being sold. This is sent to
Rachel. She sees that Peter has subscribed the disposition with his full name. He has also
signed the plan in the same way. His signature in the disposition bears to have been
witnessed by Sydney Hughes who signs “S Hughes” and whose name and address are
given in the testing clause. There is no witness signature on the plan.

In fact, while Peter did indeed subscribe the disposition and sign the plan, Sydney Hughes
was not present and only signed later without Peter acknowledging his signature to him.

(a) Is the disposition validly executed? Is it probative?

[5 marks]

(b) Has the plan been validly incorporated into the disposition?
[4 marks]

(c) Assuming that Peter’s land is registered in the Land Register, what steps must the
Keeper now take when she receives the disposition because part of it is being
transferred to Rachel?
[5 marks]

Rachel’s title is registered in the Land Register on 1 March 2020. When she arrives at the
land following her purchase, she discovers Teresa sowing seeds. Teresa states that on 1
February 2020 Peter granted her a nine-month lease of the land at a rent of £100 per
month. There is nothing in writing.

(d) Does Teresa have a real right of lease?

[4 marks]

(e) Assume that she does. What remedy, if any, does Rachel have against Peter?

[4 marks]
(f) What remedy, if any, does Rachel have against the Keeper?

[3 marks]
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4. George owns a forest. It has many trees. Unknown to George, Hazel chops down one of the
trees and cuts it into timber. She sells half of the timber to Ian who is in good faith and who
pays £200 for it. Ian takes the timber away and sells it to Jan for £150. Jan is also in good
faith.

(a) Who owns this timber?

[6 marks]

Hazel sells the other half of the timber to Bruce, a traditional boat builder. He is in good
faith. Along with other materials, he builds a small boat with it.

(b) Who owns the boat?

[5 marks]

Assume that Bruce owns the boat. On Monday he agrees to sell it to Carol for £5000. She
pays for it but says that she will collect it on Friday.

(c) If the boat were to be destroyed in the meantime by a fire at Bruce’s yard who would
bear the loss?
[4 marks]

There is happily no fire, but on Thursday Douglas spots the boat in Bruce’s yard and offers
him £6000 for it. Bruce accepts immediately and Douglas, who is in good faith, takes the
boat away.

(d) Who owns the boat?

[5 marks]

Assume that Douglas owns the boat. He wants to borrow money from a bank using the boat
as security.

(e) What, if any, types of right in security could he grant over the boat and how would these
be created?

[5 marks]

5. William owns a shop. It forms part of a tenement of six properties of roughly the same size
on three floors. There are two shops on the ground floor with their own independent
entrances. There are two flats on each of the upper floors which take access through the
common stair. The titles to the properties contain no real burdens regulating maintenance or
provisions on common property.

(a) What is William’s share of liability for maintenance of the section of the roof above the
common stair?
[5 marks]

(b) What is his share of liability for maintenance of the garden ground in front of the
building?
[5 marks]

(c) William wants to have a manager appointed to look after the maintenance of the
building. What procedure must be followed to achieve this?
[6 marks]

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 William agrees to lease the shop to Vera for two years at a rent of £1000 a month. The lease
starts on 1 February 2020, but a week later Vera has still not moved in.

(d) Can William require Vera to occupy the premises?

[4 marks]

Vera eventually moves in and is a good tenant. It is now 1 February 2022 and she continues
in occupation and paying the rent.

(e) Does the lease remain in effect although the ish has been reached?
[3 marks]

(f) Assume that it remains in effect. Is William entitled to increase the rent?
[2 marks]

6. Sarah owns business premises in Forfar. She wants to borrow money in order to expand
her business. The Angus Bank lends her £150,000 in return for a standard security over the
premises. The standard security is duly registered in the Land Register.

(a) If Sarah wants to lease the premises what step will have to be taken to ensure that
the lease is effective against the bank?
[3 marks]

(b) Must Sarah insure the premises?

[4 marks]

(c) If Sarah defaults on the loan, can the Angus Bank take ownership of the premises?

[5 marks]

Sarah does not default on the loan, but transfers ownership of the premises to Thomas without
the Angus Bank’s permission. A disposition in his favour is registered in the Land Register.

(d) Can the Angus Bank still enforce the debt against Sarah? Can it still enforce the
standard security?
[4 marks]

(e) Would it make a difference to your answer to (d) if the Keeper mistakenly deleted the
standard security from the title sheet when she updated it to show Thomas as owner?

[4 marks]

Thomas transfers ownership of the premises to Ulrika. She has no knowledge of the standard
security which continues to be omitted from the title sheet.

(f) Can the Angus Bank still enforce the standard security now?
[5 marks]

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