Please Note:- These FAQs are intended only for information and do not constitute legal advice, nor are they intended to cover all aspects of the Allendale Estate U Fund (“the Estate”) or its registration exercises. If you are in any doubt as to any course of action or any correspondence you have received then please consult your own solicitor. The contents of these FAQs does not bind the Estate in any way or to any course of action or otherwise but do represent a true statement of the Estate’s position as at April 2018.
These FAQs have been prepared by us, Muckle LLP, a firm of solicitors acting on behalf of the Estate. These FAQs have not been prepared by Land Registry, nor does Land Registry endorse them in any way. Land Registry has agreed to send these FAQs to you at our request, in order to provide you with additional information only.
The Allendale Estate is a private landed estate, which has been owned by the Beaumont family for several generations. The assets of the Allendale Estate are held in different trusts, one of which is called the U Fund. Reference to the Estate in these FAQs means the Allendale Estate U Fund and also includes its predecessors in title.
The Land Registration Act 2002 changed the law relating to manorial rights and interests so that their previously protected “overriding” status was lost from October 2013 unless owners sought to register or otherwise protect them at Land Registry. If they did not, then the rights over any particular property will be extinguished the next time it is sold for value. Manorial rights and interests include (amongst others) mineral rights, sporting rights and market rights. The Estate owns a large number of manorial titles and reacted to this change in the law in order to protect its manorial assets.
At the same time, the Estate is identifying interests which it retained on previous sales of land to third parties (such retained rights can also include mineral rights and sporting rights) and rights reserved to the Estate through Inclosure Acts and Awards.
Applications to Land Registry will often affect surface land titles owned by third parties, whether the application relates to manorial rights or reserved rights. Where your own title is registered at Land Registry, they may decide that they need to make you aware of the application because it may affect your title.
The Estate’s applications to Land Registry will often affect surface land titles owned by third parties, whether the application relates to manorial rights or reserved rights. Where your own title is registered at Land Registry, they may decide that they need to make you aware of the Estate’s application because it may affect your title. There are two types of initial Notice you may have received, depending on the type of application the Estate has made:-
This relates to an application to register ownership of the mines and minerals beneath your property. These interests may have arisen because they were reserved to the owner when the land which you now own was sold in the past. You have received this Notice because Land Registry wishes to advise you that the Estate is claiming rights and it may not already be apparent from your title register that these rights do not belong to you.
Having received a Form B25 Notice, if you are in any doubt as to any action you need to take you ought to consult your own solicitor.
If you have received a Form B133 Notice
“Copyhold” was a form of ownership where the Lord of the Manor owned the land and had rights in respect of the minerals and sporting etc, but the land was occupied by a tenant with strong rights of possession. Copyhold was abolished by the 1922 Act as at 1 January 1926, and the tenants became freeholders. However the Act preserved the Lord of the Manor’s rights over the land. These are known as “manorial rights”.
You have received a B133 Notice because we have made an application on behalf of our client to place a Unilateral Notice on the title to your property. This is the way that owners of manorial rights must protect them from the change in the law mentioned above (see section 117 of the Land Registration Act 2002).
You don’t need to take any action but, having received a Form B133 Notice, if you are in any doubt you ought to consult your own solicitor. There is no need to react within a particular timescale.
Whilst individuals and organisations may own the minerals beneath large areas of land, there are many other constraints on extracting minerals, such as the need for planning permission and environmental issues.
Our clients are only registering or otherwise protecting assets they already own, and so the position as to the potential for mineral extraction will not change, because they could seek to exploit their assets without having had to register or protect them.
If you are in any doubt as to the effect of the registration exercise on your property you ought to consult your own solicitor.
An exclusion of mines and minerals from a title to land is not uncommon and solicitors are used to seeing such exceptions when buying and selling land and houses for clients. References to manorial rights are perhaps less common, but due to the change in the law referred to above, a large number of estates and other manorial owners are actively undertaking registration and protection exercises and so such references will become far more familiar to conveyancing solicitors.
If you are in any doubt as to the effect of the Estate’s registration exercise on your property you ought to consult your own solicitor.
We have a duty of confidentiality to all of our clients, and so we are not able to tell one client about the actions of another. The applications almost invariably affect several hundred separate properties and the information provided to us on which the applications to Land Registry are made rarely allows us to identify specific properties. Accordingly, we are not able to know whether or not other clients’ land titles are affected.
If you are a client of Muckle LLP and you have received a Notice, please call or write to your main contact with the firm, and we will aim to provide whatever information and guidance we can, within the confines of our professional Code of Conduct.
Land Registry’s letter to you includes explanatory notes detailing your options. Our contact details are set out in the letter from Land Registry. However, we cannot add any further information to that set out in these FAQs. We also cannot provide you with any legal advice. Should you require further information, please consult your own solicitor.