Loss of protection for unregistered overriding interests will give greater certainty to developers, says expert

From 13 October, six historic rights will lose 'overriding interest' status unless the person benefitting from the right has registered it with the Land Registry. The right will then disappear once the property is sold.

Affected rights include so-called 'manorial rights', which can include mineral rights and rights to hunt or fish; and chancel repair liability (CRL), which gives local churches the right to claim the cost of essential structural repairs from landowners within their historic parish. Rights holders will still be able to register their rights after 13 October providing that the land has not changed owner, but they may be charged a fee in order to do so.

Property litigation expert Alicia Foo of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said that developers in rural areas in particular, where many manorial rights still exist, would welcome the change.

"We've known for a decade that this change in law was coming but people with the benefit of these rights have only recently been taking steps to preserve them - in some cases making headlines for doing so by registering rights hitherto unknown, at least to the landowner," she said. "It's important to remember that the rights don't disappear on Sunday: they just lose an element of protection if the land is sold and no rights have been registered."

"Nonetheless, property developers in particular will be glad to see these rights losing that protection. It will give greater clarity as to whether someone else owns the minerals, for example – a manorial right – beneath a development site, and avoid costly arguments as to whether a development will disturb those minerals. As many former manorial rights exist over rural land, those seeking to develop wind farms and other infrastructure projects in rural areas have found these overriding interests can be problematic," she said.

Six historic rights will lose overriding status on 13 October. These are manorial rights; chancel repair rights; franchise; tithe rights or 'corn rents'; rent rights originally granted to the Crown; and non-statutory rights to an embankment, sea wall or river wall. The rights are not lost until title to the land is transferred without a notice being served to save it, so the current owner of the land will remain liable for the relevant right. Rights that already appear on the title will be preserved.

In order to preserve one of these rights the beneficiary, such as the Lord of the Manor or a Parochial Church Council, must register an Agreed Notice or Unilateral Notice against the title to that land as held by the Land Registry. This can be done at any point before the land is sold, but there will be a fee for applications made after 12 October. Rights against unregistered land can be protected by lodging a 'caution against first registration' with the Land Registry.