The Behaviour of Land Ownership, Freehold Owner - Essay Example

Land Law 1. Introduction The things designated as possessions of a person or a group are termed as property of those persons or groups. There are number of types of properties. They are land, physical possessions, cash and intellectual properties. In this paper we deal with the ownership of real property known as land. The right of ownership is establishment of the fact that it is one’s own thing. The person or the group who possesses the ownership will have the right to dispense or using it. The ownership right excludes others using that land without the permission of the owner or any benefit to him or them. 1 The property in social and law can be termed as bundle of rights and responsibilities. It is termed as the relationship between people with regard to the things. Private property is the property that belongs to the individual or a group of individuals and the public property is the thing that belongs to a community. The property rights in the modern law give possessions to legal individuals which are not real persons. The corporations, governments and other collective forms are known as legal individuals where no individual will be the permanent owner of the property. The rights of the individuals or groups who are the owners of the property are protected by the bill regarding the rights. The law of UK also provides the protection of private property against arbitary seizure by the government. Protection of the property is also found in united nations declaration of human rights and European convention on Human rights thus was incorporated in UK law also. The individuals or groups who are termed as owners must keep in mind that the ownership is not sovereignty and it must be submissive to the government of the land. 2. Freehold Owner First let us discuss about the statutory access of the land and its dedication in England wales. Section 16 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 200 provides freeholders and long leaseholders with the opportunity to voluntarily dedicate their land for public access. The land may be a moor, mountain or a registered common land. The guidance through this act will make the individuals to know whether the dedication is a right or not. When a person wants to dedicate he can use a separate form provided if he registers the dedication as a local land charge.2 The steps that are to be followed to do a dedication are set out in the access to the countryside dedication of land (England) regulatins 2003. these regulations are applicable only to England and the persons wanted to dedicate in Wales must contact the national assembly of Wales. The persons that are eligible to dedicate land are The freehold owner of the land that is the holder of the free simple absolute possession of the land. A long lease holder who has more than 90 years of lease left to run. According to section 16(5) the act also allows the following persons to dedicate land. A life time tenant of settled land, A university or a college that got land according to estates Act 1925 and an ecclesiastical corporation to which the ecclesiastical leasing acts apply. The topics mentioned above make the dedication of the land by a certain persons only that can be termed as owners or having equal rights as owners. The legal individuals like universities and colleges are also allowed to dedicate the land. The dedication of the land also was made as a right of the person or a group who owns or has a right on the land. The eligibility for dedication in this context can be termed as a right as it was not entitled with every person except the owners. The dedication of the land by a person or a group creates a common right to every one to use it. That means the dedication act by the owner makes himself to change the personal right into a common right or right of the community. Thus the dedication changes the private property into a public property. If there is no specification of the nature of the dedication it will be limited to the open air recreation on foot. Schedule 2 of the act also contains a number of restrictions that are to be observed by the person to exercise the right to access. When a land is dedicated the process involves removing all the above mentioned restrictions to get access to it. If a person wants to dedicate the land for a particular purpose like jogging, walking or horse riding, it should be mentioned in the dedication deed and the land will be used accordingly by the administration. There is a chance for the person to dedicate the land for the public use and that dedication makes the administration free to use the land for public use but restricts the administration to allocate it for private sector. When there is restriction in dedication the right to access is limited an the use and access other than mentioned is prohibited. If that is not restricted, there sill be an universal usage of the dedicated land. Whatever may be the case there is no chance of allocating the land to the other private individual or group by the administration. The person who dedicate the land is entitled to change (relax) the restrictions after the dedication but he has no right of imposing the removed restrictions. This means when a land is dedicated for the restricted use, there is only chance for relaxation of the restrictions by the dedicator but not to impose it. This makes the right on the dedicated land limited for the owner and no right if the land was dedicated without any restriction. The unrestricted dedication of the land makes the owner to loose the right completely on the dedicated land and it will be hereafter becomes the public property. 3. The Behaviour of Land Ownership The study of the motives and behaviour of the landowners have helped to put light on theoretical understanding of the process of land supply in urban development activities. In empirical studies the structuralist and behaviourist approaches can be used. This found the involvement of land owners in the local planning process. The study found large variety of landowner behaviour than acknowledged by structuralist typologies or constrained within behaviourist characteristics. The involvement of the land owners in local planning process indicates the later activity of the land owner in the development process. It also indicates the pragmatic approach of the government and the liberalistic response of the individuals towards giving land for the public purposes. process. The research points to a much greater variety of landowner behaviour than either acknowledged by structuralist typologies or contained within behaviourist characteristics. Involvement in the local planning process would, however, appear to be an early indicator of later activity by the landowner in the development process. Such early warnings may be useful in enabling landowner behaviour to be predicted. The liberal response of the landowners and the pragmatic approach of the government provided the land for urban development activities. 4. The use of Land by Owner Cannot Impede the Neighbour’s Use There will be number of disputes regarding the land use by the owners who are neighbours. In some cases the people have common way. Both the neighbours will have right to use it. If one of the neighbour bought his house or land from the other he must check his authority while purchasing and the extent of the authority of his neighbour after the purchase. As per the British law the common usage of the way or a drive have common rights by all the neighbours who had access to their land by that way and according to the agreement while purchase. As there is no case of deeds in modern land transfers in UK, any solicitor can easily solve the dispute of the common usage of the way. The land registration act 1925 was amended in 2001 making the registration and transfer simpler in England and Wales. This enabled government to speedup house buying business that involves land purchases. This bill replaced the land registration act of 1925. The valuable interests of the owners are registered voluntarily without any mentioning. The leases and commercial property transactions are under the registration act in England and Wales. This enabled the government to protect the rights of the partners from the complexity of the unregistered law and to include the benefits and protections of registration. In case of adverse possession of the land the law of adverse possession will automatically made run by the help of disseisin. The statute regarding the adverse possession of the land is to protect the right of actual possessors and real owners. This enables the administration to take action against the adverse possessors of the land. The compulsion of disseisin made the statute applicable slowly in these cases but it is clear in doing and saying about the actual ownership and adverse possession. If an individual is possessing the land more than the limit allowed, it can be termed as adverse possession. 5. References The references were given in the following format Author, year ,title, publisher, edition, type of media, date retrieved, website address If any of the information in the above format is not available, it was mentioned or a gap was left 1. media wiki, 2007, Property, Wikipedia the encyclopedia, ,electronic, 18-1-07, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property 2. Media wiki, 2007, Eminent Domain, Wikipedia the encyclopedia, ,electronic, 18-1-07, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain 3. Access authority, 2004, Guidance note on dedication of land under section 16 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 , National park authority, ,electronic, 18-1-07, http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-countryside/cl/guidance-crow.pdf 4. C.D. Adams and H.G. May, 1991, Active and Passive Behaviour in Land Ownership, Taylor and Francis, ,electronic, 18-01-07, http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(eorrza55tg3wdk45c5e0zc55)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,2,23;journal,164,268;linkingpublicationresults,1:100403,1 Read More