Property Law (Ordinary)

LAWS08133

Director of Examinations: Dr Elisenda Casanas Adam

Course Organiser: Professor Andrew Steven
External Examiner: Dr Andrew Simpson, University of Aberdeen

This examination will be marked anonymously.

Students are encouraged to read and follow all of the instructions. These will help you to complete
your take home examination and minimise difficulties when uploading your assessment.

If you have any questions or difficulties with submission, please contact the Undergraduate
Office by email as soon as possible: Law.UGO@ed.ac.uk

The mailbox will be monitored from 8:30am – 5:30pm (BST) Monday to Friday. We will liaise with
the Course Organiser on your behalf regarding any questions relating to the exam to ensure your
anonymity is retained.

The take home examination questions begin on page 3.

Method of Submission

All work will be submitted via LEARN (the University’s Virtual Learning Environment).
Please note that Internet Explorer and Safari are not compatible with Learn and Turnitin and
therefore should not be used. We strongly advise you to use Chrome or Firefox web
browsers when uploading assessments.

If you need assistance in advance of submissions, please contact the Undergraduate Office. If
you have any problems submitting, please send your submission via email to the Undergraduate
Office (Law.UGO@ed.ac.uk). Your email must be received before the specified deadline or it will
not be accepted.

Students must use the cover sheet provided when submitting their answers. The cover sheet can
be found in the Assessment Submission and Feedback folder on the course Learn page.

Please make sure that you title your answer sheet following the convention: Student exam number,
questions answered, for example: B0123456_Q1_Q3_Q5

The contents of the cover sheet will not count towards your answer word limit. Please note that the
Turnitin word count will count all words in the document, you should ignore this. Your word count
should be taken from your document using the words count for your answer only.

Please note the Turnitin receipt is required and should be uploaded by the deadline.

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Formatting your Examination
Your exam answer sheet (attached to the cover sheet) should be submitted in the following format:

Paper: A4 size, Portrait form

Font: Arial
Font size: 12

It is your own responsibility to check that the above settings have been used when formatting your
work, as these settings may not be the default settings for your computer.

Penalties for Late Submission

Please note as this is a take home examination, late submissions will not be accepted and
the submission space will close at the deadline.

If you experience technical difficulties that prevent you from submitting your assessment, you
should email your completed work to Law.UGO@ed.ac.uk. This must be received before the
deadline.

To allow for any potential system delays or internet issues, you are strongly encouraged to
upload your completed work in advance of the deadline – remembering that this task
should not take you the whole 48 hours to complete.

Extensions and Special Circumstances

It is not possible to request an extension for a take home examination.

If you experience technical difficulties that prevent you from submitting your assessment before
the submission space closes, you should email your completed work to Law.UGO@ed.ac.uk
along with an explanation as to why you were unable to submit in advance of the deadline. The
Director of Examinations and Director of Undergraduate Studies will assess these on a case-by-
case basis and confirm by return email if your examination has been accepted.

You do not need to submit Special Circumstances for your take home exam or summative
assessments based on Covid-19 unless you have been uniquely impacted by an additional
disruption, for example if you’re suffering ill health personally. You should submit an application
for Special Circumstances if this unique impact has significantly disrupted your ability to participate
in or submit this assessment.
We encourage you to get in touch with your Personal Tutor or the Student Support Office
(Law.SSO@ed.ac.uk) for advice and support.

Academic Misconduct and Plagiarism

Students should be aware that as this is a take home examination, you are not expected to write
your response like a research essay and therefore there is no need for a bibliography. Students
should only use references to the extent they would have included them in the exam.

As in any exam, students should provide authority/sources (legislation/cases/institutional writers

perhaps) for any position you adopt/argument you make. You are only required to write the name
of the case in the usual format you would under exam conditions. However, if you do use a direct
quote, you must attribute this to the author.
If you do use a footnote or reference, which you are not expected to do, then the words that you
use to cite that reference will not count towards your word limit.

Students are expected to work independently on their examination script. Students should be
aware that collusion is a serious form of academic misconduct and they are expected to adhere to
good academic practice skills in approaching their take home examinations.
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 The Take Home Examination

 Candidates are required to answer ANY FOUR (4) questions.

 Each question is worth 25 marks.
 Total word count: 3500 words

Questions:

1. Explain whether it is possible for a real right to be created in favour of the lessee in the
following cases and, where this is possible, what is needed to achieve this. Assume that
there is a written document signed by both parties.

(a) A two-year lease of a car with rent of £200 per month.

[3 marks]

(b) A five-year lease of a shop in Dundee. The parties have failed to reach agreement as
to rent.

[4 marks]

(c) A ten-year lease giving the non-exclusive right to shoot over a Highland estate with a
rent of £2000 a month.

[4 marks]

(d) A twenty-year lease of an industrial unit in Perth with a rent of £3000 a month.

[4 marks]

The shop in Dundee is in a tenement building. It is one of two shops on the ground floor.
These are owned separately and have access only directly from the street. Above the shops
there are four upper floors with two flats on each floor. The eight flats take entry by means
of a common stair. The titles are silent on the question of ownership and repairs.

(e) Who owns the walls of the common stair and who is liable for their maintenance?

[7 marks]

(f) Are the owners required by law to take out a common insurance policy in respect of
the building?

[3 marks]

2. Aberdeenshire Council offers to sell an area of land to Brogan. She asks you to advise her
on a number of issues.

(a) How would an agreement for the purchase of the land have to be constituted to make
it legally binding?
[4 marks]
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 (b) If the Council breached the agreement before ownership was transferred to Brogan
and sold the land to another person, what remedies could she pursue?

[7 marks]

(c) What deed would be used to transfer ownership and who would have to sign it on
behalf of Aberdeenshire Council to enable it to be registered in the Land Register?

[6 marks]

(d) Once Brogan became owner could she subsequently lose her ownership right by
failing to assert it for a period of time?

[5 marks]

(e) Once Brogan became owner would it be possible for the Council to construct a road
through the land without her permission?

[3 marks]

3. Paula runs a garage in Pitlochry. She rents premises from Perthshire Properties plc under a
five-year lease.

(a) Quentin places his car into the garage to be repaired. The bill is £250. Can Paula
retain the car until the bill is paid? Can she retain it in respect of the price which
Quentin owes for a motorbike bought from her garage?

[5 marks]

(b) If Paula does not keep up her rent payments could Perthshire Properties plc recover
the debt by having the moveables in the premises sold?

[5 marks]

(c) The lease contains a clause giving an option to Paula to buy the premises at the end
of the five years. Would the option still be enforceable against a successor landlord if
Perthshire Properties plc sold the premises before then?

[6 marks]

This does not happen and Paula duly buys the premises, along with some surrounding
ground. She is annoyed, however, by the fact that the branches of a number of trees on
neighbouring land overhang onto her property. Some local youths have taken to sitting on
these, which distracts Paula’s employees.

(d) What action could Paula take in relation to the branches?

[4 marks]

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 The youths also sit on one of the boundary walls. In order to deter them, Paula wants to
increase the height of it.

(e) Is she entitled to do this? (Assume that there are no relevant real burdens).

[5 marks]

4. Graeme lends Harriet £1000 repayable on 1 August 2021. He grants a deed of assignation
of the debt to Ian on 1 December 2020. Ian registers the deed in the Books of Council and
Session.

(a) Must Harriet pay Ian on 1 August 2021?

[4 marks]

(b) Would it affect your answer to (a) if Harriet had lent Graeme £200 in August 2020
and this debt was still owed?

[4 marks]

(c) Would it affect your answer to (a) if Harriet had lent Ian £200 in August 2020 and this
debt was still owed?

[4 marks]

Assume that Harriet pays Ian. He subsequently uses the money to buy a pro indiviso share
in a racehorse. The other owners are Jean and Karl.

(d) If the racehorse is not successful is Ian entitled to have it sold and the proceeds
divided?

[4 marks]

Unfortunately, the racehorse does not like racing. It escapes and takes to living in the wild
for several years. It is eventually discovered by Leslie who takes it to his stables.

(e) Who owns the racehorse?

[4 marks]

Assume that Leslie owns it. He wants to ride the racehorse in a forest owned by one of his
neighbours, but the neighbour has put up signs saying that riding is prohibited along most of
the paths through the forest.

(f) Is the neighbour entitled to do this?

[5 marks]

5. Cochrane owns a stately home in Sutherland. It is known locally as “the big house”. He
decides to open it to the public. There are various access roads to the house. Cochrane
wants the visitors to use one which crosses land belonging to his neighbour Douglas. You
check the titles and find a deed of servitude for vehicular access along the road in favour of

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 the house which was recorded in the Register of Sasines for the County of Sutherland in
1954.

(a) Is it permissible for the visiting members of the public to exercise the servitude by
driving their cars along the road?

[6 marks]

(b) Would it make any difference to your answer to (a) if there were no deed but
Cochrane has driven along the road for the last 25 years?

[5 marks]

Cochrane decides to take a cautious approach. He pays Douglas to grant a new servitude
expressly allowing access to be taken by the visitors along the road. A deed of servitude is
drawn up, executed by Douglas and sent for registration in the Land Register.

(c) What general conditions must be satisfied before the Keeper will accept the
application to register the deed?

[5 marks]

(d) Once registered where will the servitude appear in Cochrane’s title sheet?

[4 marks]

(e) If Cochrane sells the house, the servitude will continue to be exercisable by the new
owner. Why?

[5 marks]

6. Argyll Council has agreed to sell a historic castle which it owns for redevelopment into flats.
It wants to impose a condition requiring the original stonework to be maintained which will
be enforceable by it against all future owners. The Council will not own any neighbouring
land following the sale.

(a) How could the Council achieve this?

[6 marks]

The castle is purchased by Lochside Developments Ltd. It intends to register a deed of

conditions over the castle before the flats are sold. This will contain a number of real
burdens. One of the burdens which the company wants to impose is a requirement on the
flat owners to use its gardener to look after the grounds round the castle which the flat
owners will co-own. A fee will be payable for this. The company will retain ownership of the
gardener’s cottage beside the castle, which will act as the benefited property for this burden.

(b) Would this be a valid real burden?

[5 marks]

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 The flat owners are to be given the right to play golf on a neighbouring golf course owned by
Lochside Developments.

(c) Can this be created as a valid servitude?

[5 marks]

The castle grounds partly border an inland loch.

(d) Will the flat owners be entitled to fish in it?

[5 marks]

Assume that that they are. When fishing one of them catches an old boot which has been
lying on the bed of the loch.

(e) Who owns the old boot?

[4 marks]

END OF QUESTIONS

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