ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the impact upon the law of the impossibility of registered proprietors dealing with the legal estate to their land without reference to the Land Registry. Registered land must be governed by different principles to unregistered land. The failure to identify these principles has led to an erratic and unsatisfactory application of the provisions of the Land Registration Act 1925 to cases concerning registered land by the courts, and little coherence or understanding in enacting “reforms” by the legislature. Generally there has been a failure to develop key features of the law of registered land. The effect of a restriction upon dealings is different to the effect of limiting the powers of trustees of land. The vesting of the legal estate in registered land is within the control of the Land Registry.
