Section 2 Property and Conveyancing Law of the Western Region of Nigeria 1959

Section 2 of the Property and Conveyancing Law of the Western Region of Nigeria 1959 is about Interpretation. It provides as follows:

(1) In this Law—
“building purposes” include the erecting and improving of, and the adding to, and
the repairing of buildings; and a “building lease” is a lease for building purposes or purposes connected therewith;

“conveyance” includes a mortgage, charge, lease, assent, vesting declaration,
disclaimer, release and every other assurance of property or of an interest therein by any instrument, except
a will; “convey” has a corresponding meaning; and “disposition” includes a
conveyance and also a devise, bequest, or an appointment of property contained in
a will; and “dispose of” has a corresponding meaning;

“court” means the High Court;

“equitable easement” means any easement right or privilege over or affecting land and being merely an equitable interest;

“estate contract” means any contract by an estate owner or by a person entitled at the date of the contract to have a legal estate conveyed to him to convey or create a legal estate, including a contract conferring either expressly or by implication of law a valid option to purchase, a right of pre-emption or any other like right;

“estate owner” means the owner of a legal estate, but an infant is not capable of
being an estate owner;
“fine” includes a premium and any payment, consideration, or benefit in the nature of a fine or premium;

“general equitable charge” means any equitable charge, whether or not protected by a deposit of documents relating to the legal estate affected, and which does not arise, or affect an interest arising, under a trust for sale and is not included in any other class of estates, interests or charges set out in section 193 (1);

“hereditament” means any real property which on an intestacy occurring before the commencement of this Law might have devolved upon an heir;
“encumbrance” includes a legal or equitable mortgage and a trust for securing
money, and a lien, and an annuity, or other capital or annual sum; and

“incumbrancer” has a meaning corresponding with that of encumbrance, and
includes every person entitled to the benefit of an encumbrance, or to require
payment or discharge thereof;
“instrument” does not include a statute;
“land” includes land of any tenure, buildings or parts of buildings (whether the
division is horizontal, vertical or made in any other way) and other corporeal
hereditaments; also a rent and other incorporeal hereditaments, and an easement, right, privilege, or benefit in, over, or derived from land; but not an undivided share in land;

“lease” includes an underlease or other tenancy;
“legal estates” mean the estates, interests and charges, in or over land (subsisting or created at law) which are by this Law authorised to subsist or to be created as legal estates ; “equitable interests” mean all the other interests and charges in or over land or in the proceeds of sale thereof; an equitable interest

“capable of subsisting as a legal estate” means such as could validly subsist or be created as a legal estate under
this Law;
“legal mortgage” means a mortgage by demise or sub-demise or a charge by way of legal mortgage and “legal mortgagee” has a corresponding meaning; “mortgage money” means money or money’s worth secured by a mortgage; “mortgagor” includes any person from time to time deriving title under the original mortgagor or entitled to redeem a mortgage according to his estate interest or right in the mortgaged property; “mortgagee” includes a chargee by way of legal mortgage and any person from time to time deriving title under the original mortgagee; and

“mortgagee in possession” is, for the purposes of this Law, a mortgagee who, in right of the mortgage, has entered into and is in possession of the mortgaged property; and

“right of redemption” includes an option to repurchase only if the option in effect
creates a right of redemption;
“legal powers” include the powers vested in a chargee by way of legal mortgage or
in an estate owner under which a legal estate can be transferred or created; and
“equitable powers” mean all the powers in or over land under which equitable interests or powers only can be transferred or created;
“lessee” includes an underlessee and a person deriving title under a lessee or
underlessee; and

“lessor” includes an underlessor and a person deriving title under a lessor or
underlessor;
“lunatic” includes a lunatic whether so found or not; “mortgage” includes any charge or lien on any property for securing money or money’s worth;
“notice” includes constructive notice;

“personal representative” means the executor, original or by representation, or
administrator for the time being of a deceased person, and as. regards any liability for the payment of death duties includes any person who takes possession of or intermeddles with the property of a deceased person without the authority of the personal representatives or the court;
“possession” includes receipt of rents and profits or the right to receive the same, if any; and “income” includes rents and profits;
“property” includes anything in action, and any interest in real. or personal property;

“purchaser” means a purchaser in good faith for valuable consideration and includes a lessee, mortgagee or other person who for valuable consideration acquires an interest in property except that in Part 11 of this Law and elsewhere where so expressly provided “purchaser” only means a person who acquires an interest in or charge on property for money or money’s worth; and in reference to a legal estate includes a chargee by way of legal mortgage; and where the context so requires

“purchaser” includes an intending purchaser; “purchase” has a meaning
corresponding with that of “purchaser”; and “valuable consideration” includes
marriage but does not include nominal consideration in money;
“registered land” has the same meaning as in the Land Titles Registration Law;
“rent” includes an annual or periodical payment in money or money’s worth,
reserved or issuing out of land, but does not include mortgage interest;

“restrictive covenant” means a covenant or agreement (not being a covenant or
agreement made between lessor and lessee) restrictive of the user of land;
“securities” include stocks, funds and shares;

“settlement”, unless the context otherwise requires, means any deed, will, agreement or other instrument under or by virtue of which any property is or is deemed under this Law to be limited to or in trust for any person by way of succession and the expressions “settle”, “settlement”, and “settlor”, shall be construed accordingly;

“term of years absolute” means a term of years (taking effect either in possession or in reversion whether or not at a rent) with or without impeachment for waste, subject or not to another legal estate, and either certain or liable to determination by notice, re-entry, operation of law, or by a provision for cesser on redemption, or in any other event (other than the dropping of a life, or the determination of a determinable life interest), but does not include any term of years determinable with life or lives or with the cesser of a determinable life interest, nor, if created after the commencement of this Law, a term of years which is not expressed to take effect in possession within twenty-one years after the creation thereof where required by this Law to take effect within that period; and in this definition the expression “term of years” includes a term for less than a year, or for a year or years and a fraction of a year or from year to year;

“trust corporation” means the Public Trustee or a corporation either appointed by the court in any particular case to be a trustee, or entitled by any written law to act as a custodian trustee;
“trust for sale”, in relation to land, means an immediate binding trust for sale, whether or not exercisable at the request or with the consent of any person, and with or without a power at discretion to postpone the sale;
“trust land” means any land held on a trust for sale;

“trustees for sale” mean the persons (including a personal representative) holding
land on trust for sale; and “power to postpone a sale” means power to postpone in the exercise of a discretion;

“will” includes codicil.

(2) Where an equitable interest in or power over property arises by statute or operation of law, references to the creation of an interest or power include references to any interest or power so arising.