Abstract Recent academic debate has questioned whether equitable interests should continue to be classified as proprietary, proposing instead analyses based on “rights against rights”, “modified” proprietary rights or the erosion of the proprietary/personal divide. This article, based on the text of the XXIV Old Buildings Lecture 2025, argues that these alternative frameworks, while illuminating, do not displace the enduring value of the traditional proprietary analysis. It shows that equity has long functioned as the principal means by which the law recognises ownership beyond traditional common-law categories. The proprietary characterisation of equitable interests accords with established principle, is often the simplest workable solution to the problem in hand, and corresponds to the ordinary understanding of ownership.
Michael Briggs (Mon,) studied this question.