Overriding Interest
An interest in registered land that is binding on a purchaser even though it is not protected by an entry on the register. Listed in Schedule 3 of the Land Registration Act 2002. Important examples include the rights of persons in actual occupation (para 2), legal easements, and certain leases not exceeding seven years.
Independent editorial summary — not the official statute text. Read the official version on legislation.gov.uk.
Schedule 3 of the Land Registration Act 2002 lists the 'unregistered interests which override registered dispositions' — interests that bind a buyer of registered land even though nothing on the register warns them. The first is a leasehold estate in land granted for a term not exceeding seven years from the date of the grant.
The schedule's second, and often most significant, category is an interest belonging at the time of the disposition to a person in actual occupation, so far as relating to land of which he is in actual occupation — subject to exceptions where that occupation would not have been obvious on inspection and was not actually known to the buyer. Schedule 3 also protects a legal easement or profit a prendre that was not within the buyer's actual knowledge but would have been obvious on a reasonably careful inspection of the land, along with customary rights, public rights and local land charges.
Related terms
Official sources
This explanation is drawn from the official sources below; every substantive statement is verified against them. For advice on a specific matter, see our find help page.