ABSTRACT
Unregistered land is land for which the title must be proved from the conveyancing history of the land as evidenced by the documents of title and not by inspecting a register. Even accepting the unavoidable residual role for unregistered land in modern land law, it was clear a long time before 1926 that the system of 'private unregistered conveyancing' in its original form was unwieldy, complicated and inefficient. 'Land charges' are defined in the Land Charges Act 1972, and the majority of equitable rights over unregistered land fall into this category, including equitable easements, restrictive covenants, equitable mortgages, equitable leases and estate contracts. Legal interests in another person's unregistered land, such as legal easements, legal mort-gages and legal leaseholds, are, in the main, automatically effective against the land over which they exist, even if they were granted by someone other than the landowner.
