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Concept tier agent

Proprietorship

opda:Proprietorship

Proprietorship

A Proprietorship is the binding that links one or more Proprietors to a Registered Title. It is a Relator: it carries its own properties (joint tenancy vs tenants in common; ownership shares; registration date) that don’t belong to any single Proprietor.

Why it matters

The joint-vs-tenants-in-common question is a property of the binding, not of any individual Proprietor. Two co-owners of a Property might be joint tenants today and tenants in common tomorrow (severance changes the binding, not the owners). OPDA puts that discriminator on the Proprietorship Relator precisely so it can be modified, queried, and validated without rewriting either Proprietor’s record.

If you are a conveyancer working with joint ownership or HMLR Practice Guide 24 distinctions, this is the entity whose IC matters.

Hard cases

  • Severance of joint tenancy. The owners stay the same; the binding type changes from joint tenancy to tenants in common. The Proprietorship’s IC accommodates the change without forking either Proprietor or the Title.
  • Addition of a Proprietor. A second owner is added to the Title. The Proprietorship’s IC tracks the (Title, Persons-set) — the set has changed, so this is a new Proprietorship binding (with provenance to the predecessor), not a mutation of the existing one.
  • Death of a joint tenant. Joint tenancy passes by survivorship to the remaining tenant(s). The Proprietorship’s IC reflects the new (Title, Persons-set); a Proprietorship with a single remaining tenant is a successor binding.

Identity Criterion

Two records refer to the same Proprietorship if they describe the same (Title, Persons-set) tuple at the same point in the registry record’s lineage. A change in the set of Persons — addition, removal, death — produces a successor Proprietorship, linked by a provenance chain to its predecessor. See the Logical tier → for the typed structure.

IC walk-through: severance vs Persons-set change

The discriminator (joint tenancy vs tenants in common) is a property of the binding, not of any Proprietor; a Persons-set change produces a successor binding:

%%{init: {"theme": "base"}}%% flowchart TD accTitle: Proprietorship IC decision flow accDescr: Decision tree for Proprietorship identity — severance of joint tenancy preserves the binding (only the discriminator changes); addition, removal, or death of a Proprietor changes the Persons-set, producing a successor Proprietorship linked by provenance. classDef cls fill:#E1BEE7,stroke:#6A1B9A,stroke-width:2px,color:#4A148C classDef success fill:#C8E6C9,stroke:#2E7D32,stroke-width:2px,color:#1B5E20 classDef warning fill:#FFF9C4,stroke:#F9A825,stroke-width:2px,color:#F57F17 Start(["Event affecting
Proprietorship"]):::cls Q1{"Persons-set changes
(add / remove / death)?"}:::cls Q2{"Severance only
(joint → TIC,
same Persons)?"}:::cls Successor(["NEW Proprietorship
(successor binding,
prov-linked)"]):::warning SamePerson(["SAME Proprietorship
(discriminator changes,
Persons-set unchanged)"]):::success Persists(["SAME Proprietorship
(routine update)"]):::success Start --> Q1 Q1 -->|"Yes"| Successor Q1 -->|"No"| Q2 Q2 -->|"Yes"| SamePerson Q2 -->|"No"| Persists
  • Relator — Proprietorship is the canonical OPDA Relator (alongside Transaction)
  • Proprietor — the Roles bound by a Proprietorship
  • Registered Title — the registry-side context
%%{init: {"theme": "base"}}%% flowchart LR accTitle: Proprietorship related-Kinds neighbourhood graph accDescr: Proprietorship as the Relator binding one or more Proprietor Roles to a Registered Title; specialises the Relator pattern. classDef centre fill:#E1BEE7,stroke:#6A1B9A,stroke-width:3px,color:#4A148C classDef cls fill:#B3E5FC,stroke:#0277BD,stroke-width:2px,color:#01579B classDef ext fill:#ECEFF1,stroke:#455A64,stroke-width:2px,color:#263238 Proprietorship["Proprietorship
(Relator)"]:::centre Proprietor["Proprietor
(1..*)"]:::cls Title["RegisteredTitle"]:::cls Relator["Relator
(pattern)"]:::ext Proprietorship -->|"bears (1..*)"| Proprietor Proprietorship -->|"binds"| Title Proprietorship -.->|"specialises"| Relator

Source ODR

ODR-0006 — Agents and roles §Q3

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