Equitable Liens Under Hire-Purchase Agreements

Abstract

The provisions of the Law of Property and Land Charges Acts, 1925, in regard to the registration of land charges, havt modified, almost to the extent of annihilation, the dependence of equitable interests on the question whether ihe legal estate owner had actual notice, or was affected by constnuctive notice, of their existence. The exact scope of those land charges which aro included by the Land Charges Act, 1925, s. 10, sub-s. 1, Class C (iii), under the term ‘general equitable charges’ remains to be delimited. The editors of the eleventh edition of Wolslenholme and Cherry's Conveyancing Statutes comment with characteristic caution: ‘This paragraph sweeps up the remaining equitable charges, not otherwise specifically named, which require protection.’ This does not help us very much. It is presumed that the lien which an unpaid vendor of land has for the purchase-money is a general equitable charge, and requires to be registered. But what about the charge which a cestvi quc trust has on land which has been bought out of a mixed fund consisting partly of trust money and partly of the trustee's money, for the amount of the trust money laid out in the purchase? The new rule does not seem exactly appropriate to such a case.