Land Law and the Nature of Estates and Interests
The doctrinal spine
Every conveyancing question ultimately rests on two questions: what estates and interests exist in the land, and which of them bind a purchaser? Start with the statutory framework: the only legal estates capable of existing at law are the fee simple absolute in possession and the term of years absolute. Everything else - easements, profits, rentcharges, charges, rights of entry - is a legal interest only if it falls within the recognised list and is created by deed; otherwise it takes effect in equity. Candidates must be able to classify a right instantly: is it an estate or an interest, legal or equitable, registrable or overriding?
Traps
Questions love the lease/easement boundary and the licence/easement boundary. A licence is personal and binds nobody; an easement needs a dominant and servient tenement, diversity of ownership, benefit to the dominant land, and capacity to be granted. Co-ownership is a frequent trap: joint tenants hold as one for the benefit of survivorship, tenants in common in distinct shares, and severance converts the former to the latter without ending the trust of land. Also watch the doctrine of notice for unregistered land and the three categories of land charge.
Rule of thumb
Ask: legal or equitable? Then: registered or unregistered title? Then: protected on the register, overriding, or registrable as a land charge? A right that is unprotected in registered land is generally void against a purchaser for value.
Worked example
A neighbour uses a track across your client's land for 25 years without permission. The right may be an easement by prescription, but only if it is legal in character and the user was not by force, stealth or permission. If the servient title is registered and the easement is not entered on the register, it may still override as an interest arising by prescription only from the date of registration of the servient land - check the dates carefully rather than assuming.