Land Law SQE1 practice questions

What Land Law covers in SQE1

The SRA's assessment specification for assessments from 1 September 2026 groups Land Law under five headings:

• Nature of land: real and personal property, acquiring and transferring legal estates, creating and disposing of legal and equitable interests, protecting and enforcing third-party interests, and the formalities for each.
• Title to land: estates that can be substantively registered, protecting interests on the register, interests that override registration, and in unregistered land the title deeds, land charges and the doctrine of notice.
• Co-ownership: joint tenancy and tenancy in common in law and in equity, survivorship, severance, and disputes between co-owners under sections 14 and 15 of the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996.
• Proprietary rights: the characteristics and creation of easements, the passing of the benefit and burden of freehold covenants, and mortgages, including priority, the lender's powers and duties and the protection of the borrower and others with an interest in the land.
• Leases: the difference between a lease and a licence, privity of contract and of estate, the enforceability of leasehold covenants, alienation covenants, remedies including forfeiture, and termination.

Land Law was unchanged in the 2026 review.

Where it sits in FLK2

From January 2027 FLK2 session 1 covers Land Law, Trusts, Wills and the Administration of Estates and Solicitors Accounts in the context of wills, with the questions in a random order. Land Law meets Trusts in the family home and trusts of land, and meets Wills where a joint tenancy passes by survivorship outside the estate. Its rules also decide many Property Practice questions in session 2.

The SRA's 2019 blueprint, the only version published in full, puts Land Law at 14 to 20 percent of FLK2. In the SRA's annual report for 2023/24 the mean scaled score for Land Law was 303, slightly above the 300 needed to pass an FLK. Questions follow the law as at 11 September 2026, the cut-off for the January 2027 sitting.

Where candidates go wrong

• Actual occupation. The claimant needs a proprietary interest and actual occupation at the date of the disposition. A short absence with belongings left and an intention to return can still be occupation, while moving boxes in before completion usually is not. The exceptions for an undisclosed interest after inquiry, and for occupation that was not obvious and not known to the buyer, are where the marks are.
• Notice or restriction. An interest under a trust of land cannot be protected by a notice. It is protected by a restriction, and it is overreached when the purchase money is paid to two trustees.
• Registration gaps. A legal charge or a registrable lease does not take effect at law until it is registered. A lease of seven years or less usually overrides, but not one that takes effect in possession more than three months after it is granted.
• Freehold covenants. The burden of a positive covenant does not pass to a buyer of the freehold. A restrictive covenant can bind one in equity, but in registered land only if it is protected by a notice.
• Implied easements. The rule in Wheeldon v Burrows implies grants to a buyer, not reservations for a seller, and section 62 of the Law of Property Act 1925 can be excluded by the conveyance.

How to revise Land Law

For each interest, learn how it is created, how it is protected, and what happens to it on a sale. This table sets out the common cases.

Then practise in scenario form, because the questions give facts and ask whether a buyer takes subject to a right, not for a definition. The Property Practice questions show the same rules in a transaction, and the SQE1 study plan sets how much time Land Law gets beside the practice subjects.