[2025] UKUT 178 (LC)

The appellant owns land in Reading, Berkshire, which is managed for her by her father-in-law Mr Mohammad Saood who is a property developer. In 2015 he obtained planning permission to build two detached houses on adjacent plots, one next to 37 Gordon Place and the other next to 9 Thornton Road. He built the two houses, now known as 39 Gordon Place and 11 Thornton Road, and both have now been sold; first the latter in 2017 and then the former, with which this appeal is concerned, to the respondent in 2019.

The title to 39 Gordon Place comprises a number of different parcels of registered land; it resembles a piece of pastry made by sticking the trimmings together after one has made a pie. One of the titles was BK402889. The essence of the mistake with which this appeal is concerned is this: the appellant’s solicitor says that he was instructed to sell 39 Gordon Place, but by mistake he included the whole of BK402889 in the sale because he did not realise that that title number also included a plot of land (“the Disputed Land”) about 44 metres away from number 39 and separated from it not only by the entire length of 11 Thornton Road but also by a road. The plan below shows the relative positions of the three properties, with the disputed land hatched.

The second plan below is the registered title plan for BK402889 which shows how the land within that title number has been eroded by the removal of a small corner, and of land that now forms part of the title to 11 Thornton Road, but still includes the Disputed Land on the other side of Thornton Road. I surmise that it used to form a contiguous strip before Thornton Road was built and adopted.

The appellant’s case is that the transfer in Form TR1 executed by the parties should be rectified, because what they agreed to buy and sell was just 39 Gordon Place and that the Disputed Land ought to have remained in Ms Khurshid’s ownership.