Property law is a surprising area of law, as it governs many more areas than you may initially expect. The following article will aim to summarise the key components of property law, outline the jobs available in the property law remit, explain the day to day functions of a property law practitioner.
What is Property Law?
The significance of property law (PL) cannot be overstated. Everyone in England and Wales will interact with PL at some point in their lives. Its scope covers situations from a neighbour’s tree overhanging in your garden, to the purchase and sale of billions of pounds worth of oil. The breadth in the nature of PL is reflected in the variations between different PL practitioner’s day to day functions, as will be discussed later.
PL dates all the way back to Roman times, and as its name suggests, it is the rulebook that governs land, and anything attached to it. This includes trees, buildings, oil and treasure. For example, a common situation which involves PL would be the investigation of who is the true owner of a piece of land. This may involve examining deeds, reading old agreements and researching land registry records. This can sometimes be very complex.
PL covers the acquisition of property (e.g. buying a new home), the protections of people’s interests (e.g. a neighbour building an extension that would plunge your garden into eternal shade) or the conflicts of people’s interests (e.g. if a neighbour is playing their music too loud all the time, which affects your interest to enjoy your home).
PL’s breadth is reflected in the wealth of laws that govern the area. Some of the key authorities for PL are: The Law of Property Act 1925, Case of Mines (1568), Elitestone Ltd v Morris [1997], The Land Registration Act 2002, The Law of Charges Act 1925, and even the European Convention on Human Rights (as demonstrated in Manchester CC v Pinnock [2010]).
What Does a Property Lawyer Do?
There is no straightforward answer to this question, because of the breadth of this area of law. To give a brief indication:
- A lower level property law barrister, perhaps with 1-3 years experience, will be appearing in court regularly, and will be instructed for small land disputes. They may be arguing that a claimant is not able to enjoy his land, because the defendant plays loud music all day and all night.
- A lower level land solicitor, again with 1-3 years of experience, may spend their time preparing bundles for smaller, or medium sized disputes. They will be speaking to clients, collating information and researching laws and procedures, ready for the barrister to argue in court.
- A higher level barrister (a Queen’s Counsel barrister, or a barrister with 10-15 years of experience) may spend their days primarily in their chambers (offices) preparing larger cases, such as a dispute regarding the sale of an expensive piece of real estate. They will appear in court less, as (i) the cases require more preparation, and because (ii) more expensive, higher level cases settle out of court more often than their lower level counterparts.
- A higher level solicitor, perhaps who works in a large city law firm may spend their time negotiating with their opponent’s legal team, researching complex laws regarding expensive pieces of land and drafting contracts or deeds, which include the transfer of expensive pieces of land.
Property Law Jobs
Due to the amount of property law work, most law firms will practice in this area. It is your choice as to whether you want to work in a large city law firm, such as Clifford Chance or DWF on higher level complex cases, or in a smaller local law firm, working on smaller cases, perhaps dealing with the every-day sale of properties. There are an abundance of local law firms, and there may even be one on your local high street.
Similar can be said for the barrister-side of property law, and it is your choice as to whether you will want to work on larger or smaller cases. The more premium chambers such as Falcon Chambers, Landmark Chambers, Wilberforce Chambers and Kings Chambers will all offer higher level work from a lower level of experience, but all sets will bring with them the opportunity to progress to handling high level pieces of work.
By Josh Parsons
