The Law of Real Property

Abstract

There are three great influences which have shaped the law of property over the past thousand years or so. First, the common law, which gave shape and support to the kind of feudalism imposed by William I after his conquest of the English in 1066. Secondly, the invention of the trust which stems from the recognition by the thirteenth century Chancellors of the practice of putting land in ‘use’, resulting in the separation of nominal and beneficial ownership. The third great shaping force was the property legislation of 1925 which modernised and simplified much of the unnecessary complexity of the old law.