4. The equitable doctrines

Conversion

If there is a binding duty to turn land into money, or money into land, equity treats the property as already converted. Land that trustees must sell is treated as money. Money that must be spent on land is treated as land. Fletcher v Ashburner is the classic statement: money directed to be used to buy land, and land directed to be sold, are treated as the kind of property they are to become.

Conversion only follows from a duty. A mere power to sell does not convert. The doctrine used to matter a great deal when land and personal property passed to different people on death. In England its effect on trusts of land was largely abolished by the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996, which is not part of Sierra Leone law unless adopted.

Reconversion

Reconversion is the reverse. A person who is absolutely entitled to property that is to be converted can choose to take it in its existing form. If land is held on trust to be sold and the proceeds paid to Fatu, Fatu, being of full age, can elect to take the land itself. Her choice reconverts the property.

Election

The doctrine of election stops a person taking a benefit under a document while rejecting a burden in the same document. If a testator leaves Musa a house, and in the same will gives Musa's own farm to Aminata, Musa must choose. He can take under the will, and let Aminata have his farm. Or he can keep his farm and take against the will, but then he must compensate Aminata out of what he gets under the will. Cooper v Cooper sets out that the person electing cannot take both. Election requires a clear intention to dispose of property that is not the testator's, and free property out of which compensation can be paid.

Performance

Where a person has promised to do something, and later does something that can be treated as doing it, equity presumes performance. If a man covenants to buy land and settle it on his wife, and he buys land but does not settle it, the land bought can be treated as performance.

Satisfaction

Satisfaction is the presumption that a gift was meant to discharge an earlier obligation. There are three main forms. A legacy to a creditor may satisfy a debt if it is at least as large and no less beneficial. A portion, a gift to set up a child in life, given in a will may be adeemed by a portion given during life. Equity leans against double portions. A legacy and a later portion are compared the same way. The presumptions are weak and are rebutted by evidence of a different intention, or where the gifts differ in kind or in certainty.

Equity of redemption and the doctrine of notice

The equity of redemption, the mortgagor's right to get the land back on paying what is due, is treated in Lanbuk on the Law of Land. The doctrine of notice is in the chapter on equitable rights.