Mortgages and Security Interests in Land

One of the most familiar land transactions within the popular consciousness — and the most crucial for anyone who has bought their home with the support of a bank or building society loan — is the mortgage. From their origins as the last refuge of the necessitous borrower under the shadow of usury laws, mortgages evolved to become the enabler of capital investment to support industry and commerce from the Industrial Revolution. Indeed, it was only well into the twentieth century, when much of the mortgage law we would recognize today was well established, that the domestic mortgage emerged as a routine instrument by which building societies enabled the growth of owner-occupation in the UK. Today, alongside their commercial functions, mortgages are the bread-and-butter transactions which have enabled over 70 per cent of the UK’s population to become homeowners.