ABSTRACT
Once a person has a right in land under some form of trust or further to a claim for proprietary estoppel, the question arises as to the operation and management of that trust. Before the enactment of the TLATA 1996, under the old s 30 of the LPA 1925, there was a presumption that the property would be sold (and so the term ‘trust for sale’ was used) unless some clear
intention to the contrary was shown. 1 Section 30 of the LPA 1925 has since been replaced by s 14 of the TLATA 1996 with the creation of a new procedure. Similarly, the Settled Land Act 1925 was replaced by the 1996 Act. Otherwise, the general principles of trusteeship will apply to a trustee of a trust of land as to any other trustee of a trust implied by law, except as discussed below. 2
16.2.2 The Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996
Technical objectives of the Act
The TLATA 1996 was enacted further to the Law Commission Paper Transfer of Land: Trusts of Land . 3 The fundamental technical aim of the TLATA 1996 was to achieve the conversion of all settlements under the Settled Land Act 1925, all bare trusts, and all ‘trusts for sale’ under the LPA 1925 into a composite form of trust defined as a ‘trust of land’. Alongside these objectives was the impetus to reform the rights of beneficiaries under trusts of land so that they could occupy the land (instead of being treated as an investment which should be sold) and to extend the categories of person whose rights should be taken into account when reaching decisions on applications for the sale of the home.
