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Property law weekly—key cases and policy: trusts over land, letting agents, HMLR deeds, social housing electrical safety, lender priorities, telecoms costs, new towns, Wales rent standard—2 October 2025

Published on: 02 October 2025

Published by a LexisNexis Property expert
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In this issue:

  • Transferring property
  • Residential tenancies
  • Investigating title
  • Commercial real estate finance
  • Property development
  • Environment, energy and buildings
  • Property in Wales
  • LexTalk®Property: a Lexis®Nexis community
  • Additional property updates this week
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  • New Q&A

Transferring property

‘Declaration of trust’ signed by agent did not defeat claim for transaction at undervalue

In National Iranian Oil Company v Crescent Gas Corp Ltd [2025] EWCA Civ 1211, the Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed an appeal, ruling that sub-section 53(1)(b) of the Law of Property Act 1925, requires written proof of a declaration of trust relating to land to be signed personally by the individual with authority to declare it, not by an agent, and that, absent such compliant proof, the trust cannot be relied upon to effectively resist insolvency ‘transaction at an undervalue’ claims under section 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986. The dispute arose from CGC’s assertion that National Iranian Oil Company’s transfer of a London property to a pension fund amounted to a transaction at an undervalue to defeat CGC’s $2.4bn arbitration award, where NIOC purported to declare a trust over the property through mortgage documentation executed by agents instead of by NIOC itself...

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