The Issue
A beneficial owner under a trust of land has rights recognised by the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996, including rights of occupation under s.12 and the right to have their interests considered in any application affecting the trust property under s.14–15. Those rights cannot be extinguished by proceedings to which the beneficiary is not lawfully joined, or from which they have been excluded, without their substantive position being properly and independently determined.
The Law: How It Should Operate
TOLATA 1996 ss.12–15; Williams & Glyn's Bank Ltd v Boland [1981] AC 487 — beneficial interests of persons in actual occupation may bind purchasers as overriding interests. City of London Building Society v Flegg [1988] AC 54; LRA 2002 Schedule 3 paragraph 2 — actual occupation may give rise to an overriding interest requiring consideration before registration or enforcement. Stack v Dowden [2007] UKHL 17; Jones v Kernott [2011] UKSC 53 — beneficial interests in property must be determined, not assumed away.
How It Operated in Lawrence v HNW Lending Ltd
Mr Greene's beneficial interest, his overriding interest by virtue of actual occupation, and his rights under TOLATA were not lawfully adjudicated. He was excluded from the proceedings while those rights were determined against him. His non-participation in earlier proceedings — in which he was not party and whose effect on his distinct rights he could not have anticipated — was treated as dispositive. His independent TOLATA claim, personal counterclaim for unlawful eviction, and right to have his occupation considered before enforcement were not separately tried.
"The question is not whether one court reached one adverse result. It is that the same failure of protection recurred across courts, tribunals, administration, policing and oversight — making the pattern visible only because the case passed through so many forums."
— Open Letter to the Lord Chancellor, 15 May 2026