Facts: J A PYE Ltd granted Graham a licence to use part of its land for agriculture. The licence expired, and Graham repeatedly asked for renewal of the licence but the company refused to do so. However, Graham continued to use the land as he had been previously, during which time it was accessible only through a gate which Graham kept padlocked.

Held: The House of Lords concluded that Graham had factual possession of the land → he had complete and exclusive control of that land demonstrated by the padlocked gate.

Facts: The husband held a legal freehold on trust for himself and his estranged wife. He lived in the house with his 2 children, and the wife visited daily to cook meals. The husband secretly granted a mortgage of the legal title to Kingsnorth Finance (KF), having arranged the mortgage inspection when the wife was out the house. KF paid the money to the husband alone. As KF did not pay the money to two trustees, the wife's beneficial interest was not overreached.

Held: The question of whether the wife's beneficial interest bound the bank therefore fell to be determined by the doctrine of notice. The obvious presence of children in the house should have alerted KF of the need to make further enquiry as to possible rights of a wife/partner. Kingsnorth Finance was therefore fixed with constructive notice of W’s beneficial interest under trust i.e. KF was not equity’s darling

Facts: A company was given a contractual licence to enter land to prepare for the construction of a runway. In advance, they were granted a possession order which entitled them to remove environmental protesters from the land.

Held: So, although the contractors hadn't factually or intentionally possessed the land it was held they had a greater claim to possession than mere environmental protesters who had no contractual right to be on the land i.e. they could sue in trespass and remove the protesters

⇒ This case has diluted our traditional understanding of possession: a traditional approach would have meant the contractors could not sue the trespassers as they do not have any physical control over the land and no intention to have such control, but the court of appeal said differently here

Facts: The freehold owner of unregistered land granted his son to purchase the land at a cut-price. The option to purchase was not registered as a land charge. Subsequently, and in order to defeat the option, the freehold owner conveyed he legal freehold to his wife for £500. The wife knew about the son's option to purchase

Held: The land charge is a class C(iv), so the land charge will be void against a purchaser of the legal estate in the land who give money or money's worth. As the wife does purchase the legal estate for money or money's worth the son's right will be void against her i.e. the son's option to purchase is defeated! The wife's notice of the option is irrelevant (LPA 1925 s.199(1)(i))