Property Law India

Property Law India: Notes and question and answers.

Meaning of Private Property, the different legal relations entailed.

Essential Readings
Jeremy Waldron, What is Private Property?, 5 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 313 (1985)

Suggested Readings
WH Hohfeld, Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, 23(1) Yale LJ 16 (1913).

Useful Links:

The transfer of Property Act, 1882 – India Code

Question: Anil mortgaged his house to Raj for securing a loan of Rs. 95,000. It was a usufructuary mortgage and the Deed contained three clauses:

• a) Anil was prohibited from redeeming his property for an initial period of thirty years so as to allow Raj undisturbed possession of the House.
• b) After expiry of thirty years from date of execution of mortgage, Anil must redeem the property within a period of one year, failing which he would lose the right to redemption forever and Raj would become the owner of the house and the Deed shall be deemed to be a Sale Deed.
• c) If Anil redeems the mortgage within one year after expiry of thirty years from date of execution of mortgage, Raj would have the option to stay in the house of Anil as his tenant although after paying market rent for the period of another twenty years.

Discuss the validity of the above conditions with the help of relevant cases. (1200 words)

Question. Matki Ram, the leader of Tiddudal, is the owner of several properties. Being a wise person that he always has been, he makes sure that he disposes of his properties well in time for his death. He transfers ownership of property KinderJoy to his daughter, Elsa, directing her that she will transfer it to her first born as and when it takes birth.

With respect to his property Cheetos, he decides to give it to his two brothers A and D who died in 1985 and 2005 respectively as a life estate. The same interest was to pass on to A’s widow X and after her death in 2001, to D’s widow G. He vested absolute rights in the Cheetos in D’s unborn daughter. G gave birth to Anna in 2006.

With respect to his last property, Marshmallows, he created a life interest in favour of his stepdaughter, Moana. The arrangement was such that Moana’s first born would get the life interest from his mother and then upon its death, the property will be transferred absolutely to Elsa.

Who gets KinderJoy, Cheetos and MarshMallow ultimately? Justify. (600 words)

Question: Richa buys an apartment from Shyam at market price. 10 years back, the then-owner of the plot, Ram Bajaj, constructed a 3-storeyed building, with one apartment on each floor. Ram Bajaj continued to live on the ground floor, and sold each of the apartments above to a different person. The conveyance deed executed by Ram Bajaj with each of the purchasers (including Shyam) imposed the following conditions on the purchaser and all subsequent transferees:

• a) that the transferee will not consume liquor within the premises
• b)that the transferee will sell the property only for charitable purposes.

Assuming that Richa was aware of the conditions, examine if she is bound by the same. (600 words)

Question: Shelbyville, a farmhouse in the Palampur valley of Himachal, belongs to Thomas as his self-acquired property that he had willed to Finn. Being a war veteran, Thomas mostly lived a solitary life despite several attempts made by his siblings Arthur, John, Finn, Danny and Ada in convincing him to live with them in their ancestral house in Landour. Years later, he came across Grace, they started living together. In his last days, Thomas would often tell Grace that he wants to gift Shelbyville to her and will get the will altered any day now. On that note, Grace ends up contracting with Campbell to sell Shelbyville to pay off her debts and Campbell accepts. A month after Thomas’s death, his siblings reach Palampur to settle his accounts and sell his farmhouse to Thorne for unlicensed sale of opium in the district.

• a) Does the sale to Campbell succeed? (400 words)
• b) Does the sale to Thorne succeed? (200 words)

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