Section 3 Property and Conveyancing Law of the Western Region of Nigeria 1959

Section 3 of the Property and Conveyancing Law of the Western Region of Nigeria 1959 is about Legal estates and equitable interests. It provides as follows:

(1) The only estates inland which are capable of subsisting or of being conveyed
or created at law are
(a) An estate in fee simple absolute in possession;
(b) A term of years absolute.

(2) The only interests or charges in or over land which are capable of subsisting or of being conveyed or created at law are
(a) An easement, right, or privilege in or over land for an interest equivalent to an estate in fee simple absolute in possession or a term of years absolute;
(b) A charge by way of legal mortgage;
(c) Rights of entry exercisable over or in respect of a legal term of years absolute.

(3) All other estates, interests, and charges in or over land take effect as equitable
interests:
Provided that where any land has before the commencement of this Law been held as an estate in fee tail the same shall be deemed to be held as an estate in fee simple absolute and, after the commencement of this Law, any grant in such terms as would before the commencement of this Law have created an estate in fee tail, takes effect as the grant of an estate in fee simple absolute.

(4) The estates, interests, and charges which under this section are authorised to
subsist or to be conveyed or created at law are (when subsisting or conveyed or created at law) in this Law referred to as “legal estates”, and have the same incidents as legal estates subsisting at ‘the commencement of this Law; and the owner of a legal estate is referred to as “an estate owner” and his legal estate is referred to as his estate.

(5) A legal estate may subsist concurrently with or subject to any other legal estate in the same land in like manner as it could have done before the commencement of this Law.

(6) A legal estate is not capable of subsisting or of being created in an undivided share in land or of being held by an infant.

(7) Every power of appointment over, or power to convey or charge land or any
interest therein, whether created by a statute or other instrument or implied by law, and whether created before or after the commencement of this Law (not being a power vested in a legal mortgagee or an estate owner in right of his estate and exercisable by him or by another person in his name stnd on his behalf), operates only in equity.

(8) Estates, interests, and charges in or over land which are not legal estates are in this Law referred to as “equitable interests”, and powers which by this Law are to operate in equity only are in this Law referred to as “equitable powers”.

(9) The provisions in any statute or other instrument requiring land to be conveyed to uses shall take effect as directions that the land shall (subject to creating or reserving thereout any legal estate authorised by this Law which may be required) be conveyed to a person of full age upon the requisite trusts.