What is settled land?

1925 heralded a revolution in the principles associated with the Ownership of land and the methodology of the transmission of that ownership, ie conveyancing. In particular the common practice of creating successive interests in land was reformed. The Settled Land Act 1925 (SLA 1925) replaced the Settled Land Acts 1882 to 1890 and took over most but not all of their features. In this context the principle of successive interests in the ownership of land previously concerned the rather bizarre (at least as far as modern logic is concerned) situation of two or more persons having ownership rights in land but only one having the right to immediate possession of that land. In other words one had an estate in the land for their life with other owners only having a similar right when the previous life interest terminated on death. The effect was that the land could be tied up for many generations, generally where it was important for family ownership continuation, although there could also be a commercial motive.

This was not favoured by tax