454Property Law

self-defeating, and indeed they are expressly excluded by section 53(2) of the Law of Property Act 1925.

12.2.5.2. Implied rights

In certain circumstances, a grant of an interest is implied by law, again without the need for compliance with formalities. Implied easements come within this category, including those implied by necessity, such as a right of way implied over retained land when an area which would otherwise be landlocked is sold off. Such an easement takes effect as a legal easement even though, necessarily, not made by deed and so not complying with section 52 of the Law of Property Act 1925.

12.2.5.3. Rights acquired by possession or prescription

The title to goods and land which is acquired by taking possession of them is a legal title, and again it is acquired without the need to comply with formalities, as we saw in Chapter 11. Similarly, the question of formalities does not arise where rights in land are acquired by long user giving rise to customary rights or by operation of the prescription rules we look at in Chapter 13.

In all three of these categories, however, once the interest has come into existence formalities rules come back into operation, in the sense that they must be complied with on any subsequent dealings with the interest. As far as transfer of interests is concerned, exception from formalities rules is, unsurprisingly and inevitably, given for transfers by operation of law. These include the automatic transfer of title from debtor to trustee in bankruptcy that we considered in Chapter 8.

12.2.6. Deeds and prescribed forms

Two types of formal requirement require some explanation. At the higher end of the formalities scale is a requirement that an action must be done by deed. A deed is now just any piece of signed writing that satisfies the not very stringent requirements of subsections (2) and (3) of section 1 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989. The 1989 Act simplified and rationalised the old law about deeds, implementing the recommendations of the Law Commission report, Deeds and Escrows (Law Commission Report No. 163, 1987). The most significant change was the abolition of the need for individuals to seal deeds. Sealing originally involved the imprint of a real seal on real wax, but as far as individuals were concerned this had long degenerated into fixing an anonymous mass-produced self-adhesive red sticker on to the document. The sealing requirement was therefore removed by section 1 of the 1989 Act for individuals. Similar provisions were made for companies by the Companies Act 1989 which introduced a new section 36A into the Companies Act 1985 abolishing the former requirement that each company must keep a common seal and permitting companies to execute deeds by the signature of their officers only. However, the new regime for companies has proved less successful than the provisions for individuals, and the Law Commission has recommended further changes (Law Commission, The Execution