Crash course in Land Law

By Woman on a Raft in the comments at Orphans.

The author of the actual post, exaggerating wildly, said: "the popular view is that although the landowner has paid for the land, it’s not really theirs and everyone should have access to it whenever they feel like it without having to ask anyone for permission."

WoaR responded with this:

It’s English property law. They don’t own it. Only the Queen does, and she has sold a number of rights over it to them. She (that is, the Crown) defines what right(s) it wants to sell and in this case it was a parcel of land in the green belt which can be cultivated or not, but what it can’t be is turned in to a housing estate without permission.

There is no double-think if the conditions exist at purchase. So, the legislation which imposed a right-to-roam on people who had not bought land with that condition is something one can meaningfully argue about.

If, however, you buy something with a national monument, protected tree or various wayleaves, covenants or restrictions or listed buildings on it, then that is part of the deal. For instance, up until the mid-90s if you bought a house in a mining area there was a provision that reserved mineral rights to the National Coal Board, so you couldn’t go sinking a mine in your back garden.

There’s not double-think here – only a mistake as to what ownership over land legally means. It isn’t the same as ownership of other items, which is why there is a separate branch called Land Law.

So:

Do you own the land you’ve paid for or not?
No. The Crown owns it.

If you don’t own it, what have you paid for?
You have paid for a number of rights over it which may or may not be honoured in perpetutity, depending on what it said on the deal and how long the Crown lasts for. The main right is usually the right to exclude others, but as we’ve seen, that can be modified.

As regards Dale Farm, the crucial part is that the disputed parcel of land is defined as green belt, meaning the land was bought at the price of agricultural land, not land with outline planning permission for 50 dwelling plots on it. The green belt status was known about and there was no question of them getting further planning permission following DF1.