The register of title is meant to be a mirror: look at it, and you see everything that affects the land. Overriding interests are the great exception. They bind a buyer or lender even though they never appear on the register — which makes them one of the most important risks a conveyancer manages on every transaction. Knowing when they arise, and how to guard against them, is at the heart of safe practice.
This lesson builds your understanding step by step:
- Nature and Framework — what overriding interests are, how they break the mirror principle, and the role of Schedules 1 and 3.
- Short Legal Leases — when a short lease binds automatically, and why equitable leases fall outside.
- Interests of Persons in Actual Occupation — the proprietary interest, the occupier, and the timing that make this category bite.
- Exceptions to Paragraph 2 — the three ways an occupation interest can be defeated.
- Legal Easements — the three alternative conditions, and why equitable easements are excluded.
- Overreaching — how paying two trustees sweeps a beneficial interest off the land.
- Interests That Do Not Override — why estate contracts and options must be protected by notice, and how local land charges bind a buyer.
- Key Distinctions and Practical Protection — proprietary versus personal rights, and the steps that protect a buyer.