ABSTRACT
As we have seen in Chapters 1 and 2, land law and the conveyancing system in England and Wales underwent radical reform with effect from 1 January 1926. However, it was as obvious then as it is now that the task of transforming a basically feudal system of law into one that could adequately serve the twentieth century and beyond could not be accomplished overnight. Thus, from the very first, it was intended that registration of title and the accompanying provisions of what was then the Land Registration Act 1925 would be phased in, rather like e-conveyancing is being phased in today under the LRA 2002. At first, registered conveyancing was restricted geographically to the main urban areas and it was not until 1 December 1990 that all of England and Wales became subject to compulsory first registration of title. This meant that much land remained within the old system of conveyancing, sometimes known as the system of ‘private unregistered conveyancing’, in order to distinguish it from the State-guaranteed system established by the Land Registration Acts. Although the amount of land that remains unregistered today is relatively small and getting smaller,1 there is a residual need to understand the basic structure of unregistered land even though it is of diminishing importance.2
