ABSTRACT
English law categorises property as either ‘real’ or ‘personal’. Historically, if a person had their freehold land wrongfully taken away, the law enabled them to bring a real action to recover that land. If a person had any other type of property wrongfully taken away, the law merely enabled them to bring a personal action for damages. Therefore, property came to be classified according to the type of court action that was needed to protect it. Traditionally, the essential difference between a legal interest and an equitable interest is that a purchaser of land is bound by all of the legal interests in the land but may not necessarily be bound by the equitable interests. An easement is an interest in land which gives the owner of one piece of land the right to use or restrict the use of another’s land.
