The Principle of Modern Law is Mainly Statute Based - Report Example

The Principles of Modern Law are Mainly Statute Based ID Number & Total Number of Words: 2,010 Introduction A statute is basically an Act of Parliament (Appelbe and Wingfield, 2009, p. 4). After undergoing a series of scrutiny, a statutory law starts with a written bill that can be converted into laws by the UK parliament. Although it is possible to make use of public bills, some form of private bills were commonly used in the 19th century to persuade the UK parliament to examine the bills before putting it into law (Faragher, 2010, p. 80). In the past, the monarch’s signiture (a.k.a. Royal Assent) is required in passing a statutory law. Today, the Royal Assent is treated as some form of constitutional formality. A bill is actually referring to a “draft statute” (Faragher, 2010, p. 80). Before a bill can passed into law, the bill will first be reviewed by the Members of the Parliament (MPs) (i.e. the House of Commons) to check whether or not there are some amendments to be done on the bill (Appelbe and Wingfield, 2009, pp. 4 – 5). During the second reading, further debate and amendemtns will be made before the bill can reach the committee and report stage. As part of the third reading, the bill will be re-presented to the House for a brief discussion and minor changes before it will be transferred tot he House of Lords. After the House of Lords have received the bill, it will be given back to the House of Commons for the approval of amendments (Jones, 2011, pp. 46 – 47). If the bill passess both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the bill will immediately obtain the Royal Assent or the monarch’s signature before it will finally become a law (Jones, 2011, p. 47; Faragher, 2010, p. 80; Appelbe and Wingfield, 2009, p. 5). (See Figure I – Summary of Stages of the Bill on page 3) Figure I – Summary of Stages of the Bill Source: Jones, 2011, p. 47 In general, a statute law describes legislations that are subsidiary to an Act (Appelbe and Wingfield, 2009, p. 4). Specifically the public acts are referring to laws that can affect the human rights of the people within a contituent country such as the England, Scotland, Wales, and Notherern Ireland or the entire United Kingdom whereas private acts are referring to laws that can be used to regulate the obligations and rights of each person and a corporate body (Faragher, 2010, p. 80). Since the 20th century, the number of statutes that were successfully passed into law has significantly increased. The purpose of this report is to examine the truth on whether or not the modern UK law on commercial property tenants are statute based. To give the readers a better understanding of this topic, the basic idea behind the UK land ownership practices will first be tackled followed by discussing that the modern UK law on commercial property tenants are very much heavily based on a statutory law. Since the purpose of this report is to examine the truth on whether or not the modern UK law on commercial property tenants are statute based, several real-life cases will be presented in this study as a concrete basis to the argument that the modern UK law on commercial property tenants can still be based on a statutory law. Discussion The land ownership in UK is classified as either private property, state land, or coomunal or third sector (Fuller, Jonas and Lee, 2010, p. 243). Unlike in other countries, roughly one-sixth (1/6) of the land area throughout the United Kingdom are actually owned by the state (Home, 2009). Furthermore, the UK government reserves the right to guarantee land ownership of private property. Therefore, after seeking approval from the UK administration, the British nationals who wanted to purchase land in this country is possible either via leasehold or a freehold (Home, 2009; Foukona, 2007). In England and Wales, information related to land ownership is handled by the Land Registry of England and Wales (LREW) whereas the Registers of Scotland and the Land Registers of Northern Ireland handles the land ownership information in both Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively (Home, 2009). To make the UK land tenure system much more simplier, the Law of Property Acts 1922-25 was implemented by the parliament in order to legally change the previous feudal land tenure system (i.e. copyhold or other special tenures) into either a freehold or a leasehold (Home, 2009; Speaight, 2004, p. 53; legislation.gov.uk, 1922). In general, a freehold tenure means that the tenants will have the absolute right or ownership of the land for an indefinite period of time (Home, 2009). In exchange of a rental fee, a leasehold tenure means that the tenants will have to enter into a signing contract stating that the occupants will have the right to use the land over a fixed period of time as agreed between the landlord and the tenants (Farvacque-Vitković and McAuslan, 1992, p. 46). For this reason, land properties under leasehold agreement should be returned back to the landowner after a certain period of agreed time. In most cases, the UK government prefer a freehold more than the leasehold since collecting rental fees from the tenants can be burdensome on the part of the government (Foukona, 2007). Basically, the law behind the landlord and tenants is actually dealing with issues related to land property leases that are purely based on contracted agrements between the land owner(s) and the tenants. Today, the modern law on landlord and tenants has evolved into a more complex procedure because of the fact that the modern property law can be made either in the form of common law (a.k.a. judge-made law) or the statutory laws (a.k.a. Acts of Parliament) (Home, 2009; Foukona, 2007). It is possible to enact some of the common law as a statutory law in UK. In cases wherein the obligations and rights of the landlords or the tenants which was originally approved under a common law can be ratified into a statutory law for the reasons that there were some clauses in the common law that is not clear to both the landlord and the tenants (Jacobus, 2010, p. 49). All these concepts are nothing new since this has been part of the legal practice that has been going on in UK for the past centuries. The UK Public General Acts is a good example of a common law. In line with this, The Mortgage Repossessions (Protection of Tenants etc) Act 2010 was enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty to “protect persons whose tenancies are not binding on mortgagees and to require mortgagees to give notice of the proposed execution of possession orders” (legislation.gov.uk, 2010b). Most of the statutory laws in UK can be easily located online through the National Archivse (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/). A good example of a past UK statutory instrument was made on the 24th of September 1954 which aims to make some amendments on Section 37(6) of the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1954 as the Landlord and Tenant (Determination of Rateable Value Procedure) Rules 1954. The said Act eventually came into force on the 1st of October 1954 (legislation.gov.uk, 1954). Today, there are quite a lot of modern statutory instruments that were made on UK commercial properties particularly on landlord and tenants. The Scottish statutory instrument known as The Scottish Secure Tenants (Compensation for Improvements) Regulations 2002 was made on the 26th of June 2002. The main reason behind the enactment of The Scottish Secure Tenants (Compensation for Improvements) Regulations 2002 is to re-discuss sections 30 and 109(2) of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001. With regards to work improvements such as the “installation or replacement of an item”, The Scottish Secure Tenants (Compensation for Improvements) Regulations 2002 clearly stated that “Compensation shall not be payable: (a) where the compensation which would otherwise be payable is less than £100 being the prescribed amount for the purposes of section 30(4)(c) of the Act; or (b) where the tenancy ends in either: (i) an order for recovery of possession was made on any of the grounds specified in Part I of Schedule 2 to the Act; (ii) the house was disposed of under section 14 of the 1987 Act; (iii) the house was disposed of under section 65 of the 2001 Act; (iv) the right to buy under Part II of the 1987 Act has been exercised; or (v) the qualifying person has been granted a new tenancy, whether alone or jointly, of the same, or substantially the same, house by the same landlord” (legislation.gov.uk, 2002). Laid before the Parliament on the 30th of November 2004, another UK statutory instrument was made last November 22, 2004 which aims to amend section 166 of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. Applicable only in England, The Landlord and Tenant (Notice of Rent) (England) Regulations 2004 added some legal guidelines with regards to the form of notice of the rent due. In line with this, the Act clearly stated that the form of notice of the rent due should contain not only the leaseholder’s name but also the exact period wherein the rent is due, the name of the person to whom the payment is made, the name of the landlord who receives the notice of rent due, and other required information that was initially stipulated under the previous regulations (legislative.gov.uk, 2004). With regards to housing in Wales, The Housing (Right to Buy) (Information to Secure Tenants) (Wales) Order 2005 was made on the 27th of September 2005. Under this order, the landlord is required to revise the document stated under section 121AA(4) of the Act within 2 months before the 28th of September 2005 and that the landlord is required to give a copy to each of the existing and new tenants (legislation.gov.uk, 2005). With regards to rentals in Wales, The Landlord and Tenant (Notice of Rent) (Wales) Regulations 2005 was made on the 17th of May 2005 to inform the leaseholders that the form notice of rent due should include not only the leaseholder’s name but also the exact period wherein the rent is due, the name of the person to whom the payment is made, the name of the landlord who receives the notice of rent due, and other required information that was initially stipulated under the previous regulations (legislation.gov.uk, 2005). Applicable to England and Wales, The Mortgage Repossessions (Protection of Tenants etc) Act 2010 (Commencement) Order 2010 was made on the 29th of June 2010 to empower the Secretary of State to construct regulations with regards to The Mortgage Repossessions (Protection of Tenants etc) Act 2010 (legislation.gov.uk, 2010). Conclusion Although common laws in the form of UK Public General Acts can be used in the law of landlord and tenants, the samples provided earlier strongly suggest that the modern UK law on commercial property tenants are heavily based on the statutory laws. In general, the sources of law in UK is not based on superior laws wherein the soundness of other laws can be examined. In fact, there is no such superior laws in UK. Because of the presence of an “unwritten constituion” in UK, the UK law on landlord and tenants (particularly in the case of England and Wales) can be based on pure statutory laws when making important decisions with regards to the use of commercial properties (Speaight, 2004, p. 52). This partly explains why the legal system in England and Wales is highly dependent on the Court. Self-Assessment Aside from the clear introduction and conclusion, the wrting presented on this paper follows a logical progression. To prove that the law on landlord and tenants can be based on common laws, an example of the recent UK General Public Act was provided in this essay. To prove that the modern UK law on commercial property tenants are heavily based on the statutory laws, several past and current statutory laws in England, Wales and Scotland were provided in this study. Furthermore, all facts presented in this study were all properly referenced. On top of the clear presentation of generated facts, several legal principles related to common law and statutory laws were presented in this study. References Appelbe, G. and Wingfield, J. (2009). Dale and Appelbes Pharmacy Law and Ethics, 9th edition. London: Pharmaceutical Press. Faragher, C. (2010). Public Law Concentrate:Law Revision and Study Guide: Law Revision and Study. 1st Edition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Farvacque-Vitković, C. and McAuslan, P. (1992). Reforming Urban Land Policies and Institutions in Developing Countries. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Foukona, J. (2007). Legal aspects of customary land administration in solomon island. Journal of South Pacific Law, 11(1), pp. 64-72. Fuller, D., Jonas, A. and Lee, R. (2010). Interrogating Alterity: Alternative Economic and Political Spaces. Ashgate. Home, R. (2009). Land ownership in the United Kingdom: Trends, preferences and future. Land Use Policy, 26S, pp. S103-S108. Jacobus, C. (2010). 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The Landlord and Tenant (Notice of Rent) (England) Regulations 2004. 2004 No. 3096. UK Statutory Instruments. [Online] Available at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3096/pdfs/uksi_20043096_en.pdf [accessed 14 November 2012]. Speaight, A. (2004). Architects Legal Handbook: The Law for Architects. 8th Edition. Burlington, MA: Architectural Press. Read More