Question 1: a ten-year lease was completed in 1998 granting a right of escape over L's (unregistered) retained land. You are acting for a proposed assignee in 2005. Although the assignment will not trigger first registration, do you need to register the right to escape against the retained land?

Question 2: a 15-year lease was completed in 2001. In 2002, a deed of variation reserved a drainage right for the benefit of L. You are acting for a buyer of L's reversion in 2005. What, if anything, should you do in connection with the drainage right?

The answer to the first question is that you should consider registering the right of escape against the retained land. Indeed, you should register all easements created before 13 October 2003 (whether created expressly, impliedly, or by prescription) unless they are clearly excepted because the burdened land was already registered as at 13 October 2003. As far as the second question is concerned, since you are acting for L, you should remember that any assignment of the lease by T while the lease still has more than seven years to run will trigger first registration. If the deed of variation is overlooked at that stage, then the drainage right might lose its overriding status on a further disposition of the lease after 13 October 2006. Accordingly, you should register a caution against first registration to protect that drainage right.

Such are the complications of LRA 2002! Source: Practical Commercial Property Law 2005 Conference (held in London on 16 June 2005) (Katharine Fenn, Denton Wilde Sapte). © Practical Lawyer