Epps v Esso Petroleum Co Ltd [1973] 1 WLR 1071

Lord Templemann

• Rectification can only occur if:

  1. The registered party was not in possession,

  2. The party with the equitable interest (i.e. contractual right to the thing but failure to register) was in actual possession, and

  3. Whether it would be unjust not to rectify (treated here as the “knew/ought to have known from careful investigation” of P’s right).

• Here, Defendant did not/ought not to have known of the mistake in the double conveyancy and Plaintiff was not in “actual possession” (though Lord Bridge determines this by how often Plaintiff’s car was parked in the strip and claims that because of the size of the strip (large) compared to the size of the car (small) there was no actual occupation - bizarre).