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The area of land in England and Wales is 151,174 km 2 (58,368 m 2 ), while the United Kingdom is 243,610 km 2. By , 82 per cent was formally registered at HM Land Registry. [ 1 ] In , over a third of the UK was owned by 1,200 families descended from aristocracy. [ 2 ] while 15,354 km 2 was owned by the top three land owners, the Forestry Commission. National Trust and Defence Estates. The Crown Estate held around 1,448 km 2. [ 3 ]

English land law is the law of real property in England and Wales. Because of its heavy historical and social significance, land is a major part of the wider English property law. Ownership of land has its roots in the feudal system established by William the Conqueror after 1066, and with a gradually diminishing aristocratic presence, now sees a large number of owners playing in an active market for real estate. The modern law's sources derive from the old courts of common law and equity which includes legislation such as the Law of Property Act 1925. the Settled Land Act 1925. the Land Charges Act 1972. the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 and the Land Registration Act 2002. and the European Convention on Human Rights. At its core, English land law involves the acquisition, content and priority of rights and obligations among people with interests in land. Having a property right in land, as opposed to a contractual or some other personal right, matters because it creates privileges over other people's claims, particularly if the land is sold on, the possessor goes insolvent. or when claiming various remedies, like specific performance. in court.

The Court of Chancery could mitigate the injustice of strict common law rules of property, if the Lord Chancellor deemed it equitable. The court systems were merged by the Judicature Acts of 1873-1875.

"Anyone who lends money on the security of a matrimonial home nowadays ought to realise that the wife may have a share in it. He ought to make sure that the wife agrees to it, or to go to the house and make inquiries of her. It seems to me utterly wrong that a lender should turn a blind eye to the wife's interest or the possibility of it - and afterwards seek to turn her and the family out - on the plea that he did not know she was in actual occupation. If a bank is to do its duty, in the society in which we live, it should recognise the integrity of the matrimonial home. It should not destroy it by disregarding the wife's interest in it - simply to ensure that it is paid the husband's debt in full - with the high interest rate now prevailing. We should not give monied might priority over social justice ."

Originally to facilitate transfers of land, the Law of Property Act 1925 sections 2 and 27 make provision so that people with equitable interests in land may not assert them against purchasers of the land if there are two trustees. If a person has an equitable interest in a property, the law allows this interest to be detached from the property, or "overreached" and reattached to money given in exchange for land, so long as the exchange took place by at least two trustees. This was, however, applied not for the purpose of trading property by professional trustees, but against homeowners in City of London Building Society v Flegg. [ 56 ] Here two parents, Mr and Mrs Flegg, had given their home to their children, who in turn mortgaged the property and defaulted on the loan. The House of Lords held that because the words of the statute were fulfilled, and the purchase money for the interest in the property (i.e. the loan that the children squandered) had been paid to two trustees, the Fleggs had to give up possession. Lastly, it is possible to lose an interest in land, even if registered, through adverse possession by another person after 12 years under the Limitation Act 1980 sections 15 to 17. mnhm