Basic land law

Study notes

Paper 1’s legal foundation: what counts as land, the estates you can hold in it, the rights you can hold over someone else’s land, and how title is registered and protected in Singapore.

What you must know

• Land extends beyond the surface — it includes the subsoil below and the airspace above, to the extent practical use demands.
• Fixtures vs chattels turns on annexation: the degree and method of attachment, and the purpose of attachment. A fixture is part of the land and passes with it.
• Estates in land: a fee simple in Singapore is held as an estate in perpetuity; leasehold estates (commonly 99 or 999 years) expire and revert.
• State Lands Act: land is presumed state-owned where there is no private title — notably the foreshore and seabed.
• Rights in another’s land: easements (a right benefiting a dominant tenement over a servient one), profits à prendre, restrictive covenants (negative promises that bind successors), and licences (mere personal permissions).
• Registration of titles follows the Torrens system under the Land Titles Act — title by registration, with caveats lodged to protect unregistered interests.
• Strata titles create subsidiary titles with common property held through the management corporation, apportioned by share value.