Explanatory note

These Rules, which replace the Land Registration (Matrimonial Homes) Rules 1983, make provision for the protection by notice of a charge in respect of a spouse’s rights of occupation under the Matrimonial Homes Act 1983 in relation to registered land. The Rules also make provision and prescribe revised forms for applications to register and renew such notices and for renewal of cautions, entered before 14th February 1983, to protect a spouse’s rights of occupation. They also re-state the circumstances in which the Chief Land Registrar may be required to serve a notice warning off an existing caution protecting a spouse’s rights of occupation.

The Rules prescribe that a proprietor of a registered chargee or a mortgagee may requisition an official search of the register in the prescribed form to ascertain whether any such caution or notice has been registered and also prescribe the form of the official certificate of the result of search.