FE-1 Law of Property common mistakes
FE-1 Law of Property · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Answering a registration question by describing the general law position (e.g. that legal title passes on delivery of a deed) instead of applying the registered-disposition rules that actually decide priority.
Candidates revise unregistered conveyancing first and then treat registration as a formality bolted on, so they never internalise that a registrable disposition must be completed by registration to operate at law, and that priority between competing interests turns on notice and protection on the register rather than on the order of contracts.
What to do instead
Before answering, ask 'is this registered or unregistered land?' and if registered, run a fixed checklist: is the disposition registrable; has it been completed by registration; is the third party's interest a registered charge, a notice, an overriding interest, or nothing. Practise by writing the checklist out from memory and applying it to five short priority scenarios.
Treating a contract for sale as if it transferred the property, so the candidate says the buyer owns the land from exchange and ignores the vendor's position between exchange and completion.
The language of 'sale agreed' in everyday use blurs the doctrinal split between contract and conveyance; the exam deliberately tests the gap, including risk, insurance, and the vendor's right to rents and to retain possession until completion.
What to do instead
Memorise the two-stage structure and, for each stage, list who bears risk, who is entitled to income, and what happens on default. Then answer using the words 'exchange creates an equitable interest only; completion (or registration) is what shifts the legal estate'.
Confusing the statutory grounds on which a lease can be forfeited or a tenancy terminated with the contractual and common-law rules, and applying the wrong notice requirements.
Lease termination draws on several overlapping regimes and candidates learn the labels without the procedural conditions, so they correctly name forfeiture but omit the notice of breach, the relief provisions, or the waiver-by-acceptance-rent point.
What to do instead
Build a one-page table with one row per termination route (forfeiture, surrender, notice to quit, break clause, expiry) and columns for the required notice, the landlord's or tenant's conduct that waives the right, and the court's discretion to grant relief. Test yourself by covering a column and reconstructing it.
Drafting or analysing a will without checking the formalities and the testator's capacity and intention, then arguing about construction of the words when the will was never validly made.
Construction problems feel more interesting than compliance, and candidates assume the facts state a valid will; examiners often plant a defect in the execution or in the attestation by a beneficiary.
What to do instead
Adopt a strict sequence: capacity, intention, formalities, then construction, then revocation. On every succession question, write the four headings even if you conclude each is satisfied in one line, so a planted defect cannot slip past you.
Answering a co-ownership question by stating the shares in equity without addressing how the beneficial interest is held (joint tenancy or tenancy in common) and whether severance has occurred.
Candidates conflate the legal estate, which can only be held as a joint tenancy, with the equitable interest, where the real question lies, and they forget that conduct, agreement, or a declaration can sever without any written document.
What to do instead
For every co-ownership fact pattern, answer in three steps: legal estate (joint tenants, maximum four, overreaching on sale), equitable holding (joint tenancy or tenancy in common), and severance (has anything happened to convert a joint tenancy in equity). Quote the severance method you rely on.
Missing the difference between an easement and a restrictive covenant, or between a lease and a licence, and then applying the wrong remedy or the wrong test for binding successors.
These pairs share vocabulary ('right over land', 'occupation') and candidates match on keywords rather than on the legal consequences, which differ sharply: remedies, enforceability against purchasers, and the tests applied.
What to do instead
For each pair, write the defining test (for easements: the characteristics and the requirement of dominant and servient land; for leases: exclusive possession for a term at a rent) and the consequence of the classification. In the exam, classify first, then discuss enforceability.
Ignoring the standard preliminary enquiries and search stage in a conveyancing problem, and jumping straight to the transfer deed, so the answer never deals with the risk the buyer should have discovered before exchange.
The dramatic issue in the facts attracts attention, and candidates do not have a mental model of the transaction as a sequence of investigations, report, contract, completion, and post-completion registration.
What to do instead
Answer conveyancing questions along the transaction timeline and state, at each stage, what the buyer's solicitor should do and why. If the facts raise a defect, say at which stage it should have been found and what protection (enquiry, search, indemnity policy, contractual warranty) was available.
Stating that a purchaser takes free of an interest because it was not registered, without checking whether it is an overriding interest or whether overreaching has occurred.
Candidates learn 'registration protects' as a slogan and then apply it mechanically, forgetting that some interests bind without registration and that payment to two trustees can sweep beneficial interests off the title.
What to do instead
When an unregistered interest appears, ask three questions in order: is it capable of being an overriding interest; has it been overreached by a conveyance to a purchaser by two or more trustees; and only then, is it protected by notice. Write the answer as a short chain of reasoning, not a conclusion.
Treating the landlord's repairing obligations and the tenant's repairing obligations as interchangeable, and failing to apply the statutory limits on contracting out or the effect of a break clause on ongoing liability.
The implied terms and the statutory controls are numerous and similar in wording, and candidates remember that repairing obligations exist without remembering who bears them, how they are limited, and whether a break clause ends the liability.
What to do instead
Keep a comparison sheet of implied covenants and statutory controls with the party bound, the standard of repair, and any limit or condition. For break clauses, always ask whether the break is conditional and whether it terminates future liability or only possession.
Giving a conclusion on intestate succession without working through the order of entitlement and the treatment of the surviving spouse or civil partner and issue, and without noting the property-specific consequences such as the matrimonial home and the personal representatives' powers.
Candidates rely on a rough memory of 'spouse gets everything' and skip the statutory order, the statutory legacy, and the distinction between the estate passing to the personal representatives and the beneficial entitlement.
What to do instead
Learn the statutory order as a numbered list and apply it mechanically to the facts, showing each step and the amount or share at each stage. Then add the property consequences: what the personal representatives can sell, and what interest the beneficiary actually receives.