Since the stroke of midnight on 31 December 1881, property lawyers have, by the use of certain expressions in documents of title flowing from their pens, typewriters and word processors, caused a form of words defining the obligations of the transferor to the transferee to be implied by statute.

These implied covenants for title were originally contained in the Conveyancing Act 1881, and were re-enacted in almost identical terms by s.76 and sched 2 pts I-VI of the Law of Property Act 1925.Since the chiming of the Lincoln's Inn clock at midnight on 31 December 1925 these covenants have remained untouched; a fate or privilege due, no doubt, to their comparative obscurity.

'Patently ancient and complicated' (the Law Commission) or 'a jungle of verbiage' (Slade LJ) are terms used to describe these implied covenants.

Over 500 words are implied when the vendor conveys as 'beneficial owner'.

How many of us have read the provisions in the Law of Property Act? It is plain that the covenants do not satisfy the principal aim of a 'warranty' of title, namely that such a 'warranty' should afford a readily identifiable means of protection to the purchaser.

The defects in the scheme contained in the 1925 Act are many.

Four are plain to see.First, the qualified nature of the liability under the covenants makes it difficult to prove whose act or omission has caused the breach, and that the person so causing it f alls within the class of persons for whom the grantor is responsible.

You may need to go back hundreds of years to discover the starting point of liability.

Secondly, there are historic relics in these covenants; a wife is presumed to convey by direction of her husband when they are conveying as beneficial owners.Thirdly, the use of the words importing the covenants (eg 'as beneficial owner') creates difficulties where, as is so often the case, the vendors are selling as trustees for sale and ought to be expressed to convey 'as trustees'.Finally, now that all land in England and Wales is compulsorily registrable at HM Land Registry, it is questionable whether a system of covenants for title which depends on the need to build up a chain of protection by investigation of the title on each disposition, and which contains such a collocation of words, is readily suited to a (relatively) modern system of registered conveyancing.

(For a recent and rare example of the need to deal robustly with such covenants in registered conveyancing see AJ Dunning & Sons v Sykes & Son [1987] Ch 287.) The Law Commission in its 1991 Report (Law Com 199) concluded that reform was overdue.Parliament has acted.

On 3 November 1994 royal assent was given to the Bill now entitled the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1994.

Ss.1-13 are concerned with implied covenants for title, prospectively repealing the old law.

(The bulk of the remaining 11 sections cover matters arising in connection with death.) The Act follows, with modifications, the Law Commission's recommendations made in its report.

Quite why this reform has been given the green light is unclear: are implied covenants for title, however ancient and verbose, more in need of a shake up than obsolete restrictive covenants? Ss.1-13 of the Act are due to be brought into force on 1 July 1995 by statutory instrument.The scheme of the Act is simple.

You have three choices.

To exclude covenants for title altogether by not using the new 'key words' at all, or by modifying the obligations under the Act.

To give a 'full title guarantee', or to give a 'limited title guarantee' by expressly incorporating those words.The first option raises endless permutations and I shall not consider in detail the 'tailor-made' route whereby covenants for title may be given after 1 July 1995.

If you choose to adopt one of the alternatives offered by the Act you can do so, with or without modification.

The choice lies between a fuller and a less onerous set.

It is important to note that the Act applies to any disposition of real or personal property and whether or not for value.

The guarantee is not, therefore, limited to real property, although this article is written principally from the aspect of a conveyancer.What, therefore, is given by each class of title guaranteed? Whether you give a full or limited title guarantee you will covenant:(a) That you have the right to dispose of the property of which you purport to dispose; the old 'right to convey' (s.2(1)(a)).(b) That you will, at your own cost, do all you reasonably can to give the transferee the title you purport to give (s.2(1)(b)).

This means in registered land transfers you will do all you can to ensure the transferee is registered with at least the same class of title he or she had before the transfer.

In cases of land to be registered, you will give 'all reasonable assistance' to ensure the transferee's right to be registered as proprietor.

This is a modern form of the old 'further assurance' covenant; but note the shift in the responsibility for bearing the cost to the transferor (s.2(2)).

By s.2(3) you also covenant (unless you provide otherwise) on a transfer of an existing legal interest in land that, where registered, you are transferring the whole of it, and where unregistered, the presumption is that the fee simple is being transferred, unless it appears that a term of years is being disposed of, in which case you covenant that the disposition is for the unexpired term.

This subsection gets rid of any doubt (present for technical reasons in the law being repealed) over what is the subject of the covenant.(c) That, in dispositions of leases, the lease is subsisting at the time of the disposition and that there is no breach of condition or tenant's obligation or anything which would render the lease liable to forfeiture (s.4).

It is very probable that this covenant will be heavily modified, as at present, to exclude non compliance with repairing covenants and the like.(d) That where you are granting a mortgage of a lease or of a freehold subject to a rentcharge, the mortgagor covenants that the terms of the lease or the rentcharge as imposed on him will be fully and promptly observed and performed (s.5).The difference comes when the Act deals with the old 'freedom from incumbrances' covenant.

Where a full title guarantee is given, s.3(1) and (2) require a covenant that the property is free from all charges and incumbrances and third party rights other than those of which the transferor is ignorant and could not reasonably be expected to know about.

The covenant extends to charges etc imposed or rights conferred by 'any enactment' (eg Housing Act grants) but not 'potential' liabilities and rights or those of a general nature and not such as to constitute 'defects in title'.

(When is a defect not a defect in title - Bain v Fothergill reborn?)In contrast, by s.3(3) where limited title guarantee is given, the covenant relating to incumbrances is narrower, covering only those charges, incumbrances or subsisting third party rights which the transferor has created since the last disposition for value, with a covenant that the transferor is not aware of anyone else having incumbered the property since that last disposition for value.

This is a less onerous covenant.

One suspects that the difference between the two covenants relating to incumbrances will be a reason why unmodified full title guarantees will be rare.

There is no longer a covenant for quiet enjoyment in either case.It is open to the vendor to make the disposition expressly subject to any matters which might otherwise cause a breach of covenant (s.6(1)).

S.6(2) excludes liability for things within one's actual knowledge, or anything which would be treated as within the transferee's knowledge because of facts known to him.

Deemed notice by s.198 of the Law of Property Act 1925 is disregarded.

(See Rignall v Halil [1987] Ch 190 for an instance of knowledge of incumbrances in practice.) There is a trap here for the unwary buyer of real property who in the usual way will have been told about the vendor's mortgage.

Unless the buyer modifies the covenant of freedom from incumbrances, the vendor may be able to rely on s.6(2) to avoid an action on the covenant in respect of a charge drawn to the knowledge of the purchaser (Although in practice protection may be present under the usual undertaking to discharge.) The benefit of the implied covenants for title runs automatically with the land (s.7).The Act contains transitional provisions which are important.

Assuming commencement occurs on 1 July 1995 the po sition will be as follows: (a) dispositions of property made before 1 July - the old forms apply (s.10);(b) contract before 1 July, completion thereafter and no reference on the face of the instrument effecting the disposition as to the old or new law - the old forms apply.

The same will happen in cases of options granted in like terms before 1 July, but exercised thereafter (ss.11 & 13);(c) 'hybrid cases'.

S.12 provides for potentially complex cases where dispositions governed by the new law take place after 1 July but before contracts made before 1 July are completed.

One example would be the assignment of a freehold reversion after 1 July made with full or limited title guarantee and subject to an option to purchase it vested in the tenant, the tenant exercising his option after the Act comes into force.

In such cases the Act translates the old words in the pre-1 July contract into the new so that a contract by the vendor as beneficial owner will imply full title and in other cases (eg where the vendor is contracting as trustee) limited title will be implied.Thought and care will be required as the commencement date looms as to the choice of words by which the vendor is expressed to convey in the contract or conveyance, particularly in cases of options and deferred completions.After 1 July 1995 it remains to be seen how many vendors will offer full, limited, or next to no title at all.

The decent obscurity of the old words having been conveyed to the dustbin, the arrival of the new may focus the property lawyer's mind on precisely what covenants will be given on the proposed disposition.

Will there be more verbiage or less?