Trawl: Property Law UK Update Info for Newsletter Editors
| Trawl date | 03 April 2023 |
| Article deadline | 15 April 2023 |
Contents – topic areas
- Residential – Landlord & Tenant
- Residential Lease Management
- Residential Leasehold Management
- Building Safety Act 2022
- Commercial Property
- Property Transactions
- Property Litigation
- Boundaries and Adverse Possession
- Rights of Way
1. Residential – Landlord & Tenant
Connell & Anor v Beal Developments Ltd & Ors [2024] UKUT 54 (LC) (21 February 2024).
SERVICE CHARGES – striking out application – leaseholders’ application for determination of service charges – whether FTT entitled to strike application out as frivolous or vexatious following determination of service charges payable by a different leaseholder – rule 9(3), Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Property Chamber) Rules 2013 – appeal allowed.
Clemente v Mindmere Ltd (Rev1) [2024] UKUT 50 (LC) (20 February 2024).
ADMINISTRATION CHARGE – recovery of costs as an administration charge when incurred “for the purpose of and incidental to the preparation and service of a notice under section 146 of the Law of Property Act 1925” – whether the issue of proceedings for a money judgment for unpaid service charges amounts to waiver of the right to forfeit for failure to pay those charges.
2. Residential Lease Management
Howe Properties (NE) Ltd v Accent Housing Ltd [2024] EWCA Civ 297 (27 March 2024)
This appeal concerns service charges in relation to properties on an estate that includes The Meadowings and Sheepfoote Hill in Yarm, near Stockton-on-Tees (the “Estate”). Howe is the long leaseholder of four properties on the Estate (the properties and the appeal relates to the terms of three of its leases (the “Leases”).
The issue is whether the terms of the Leases entitle the appellant landlord (“Accent”), which manages the Estate, to levy an annual service charge which includes a fee for management services which is set by it on a standardised basis in respect of all its properties nationwide.
3. Residential Leasehold Management
Avon Ground Rents Ltd v Canary Gateway (Block A) RTM Company Ltd [2023] EWCA Civ 616 (30 May 2023)
The question raised by this appeal is whether a “shared ownership lease” granted for a term of more than 21 years is a “long lease” for the purposes of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 (“the 2002 Act”) regardless of whether the tenant’s share is 100%. The point turns on the construction of section 76 of the 2002 Act.
4. Building Safety Act 2022
URS Corporation Ltd v BDW Trading Ltd [2023] EWCA Civ 772 (03 July 2023).
With 11 files of authorities, ranging from the well-known (Pirelli, Murphy) to the obscure (Tozer Kemsley), and disputes concerning scope of duty, accrual of the cause of action in tort, contribution and the Defective Premises Act 1972 (“DPA”), this appeal had all the hallmarks of a three-day examination in construction law. However, with the assistance of leading counsel on both sides, and the teams that they led, the issues were swiftly identified and then efficiently debated. Perhaps the most important concerned the date of the accrual of a cause of action in tort against designers of a defective building, in circumstances where the defect caused no immediate physical damage. Did the cause of action accrue when the building was completed to the defective design, or when the developers discovered that the buildings were structurally defective?
5. Commercial Property
Blackhorse Investments (Borough) Limited v The Mayor and Burgesses of the London Borough of Southwark [2024] UKUT 33 (LC).
The Upper Tribunal considered various challenges to an order under s.84(1) Law of Property Act 1925 relating to discharge or modification of covenants in a long lease, and upheld some of them. The applicant tenant wanted to implement a planning permission for redevelopment of a former public house, but could not do so under the terms of its lease. Unable to achieve consensual resolution with its landlord, the tenant applied to the Tribunal for modification or discharge of various covenants, including restrictions on assignment and underletting, covenants relating to the making of alterations without consent, and a keep open covenant.
Pincus v Johal & Anor [2024] EWHC 502 (Ch) (08 March 2024).
Judgment on an application by the claimant by notice in this matter dated 14 July 2023. The claim in which it is made was begun by claim form issued on 19 August 2022. It alleges that the defendants have wrongfully interfered with a right of way vested in the claimant to entitle him to use a concrete platform situated on the second defendant’s land at 19 Millicent Road, Leyton, London E10, so as to access an entrance to his own next-door commercial premises at 21 Millicent Road. The first defendant is concerned in the management of the second defendant, and therefore of the land. The application currently before me is for an order that the claimant be permitted to enter on the defendants’ land to reinstate the concrete platform. I shall return to that in due course, but first I will deal with the background to the matter and the procedural aspects of the claim.
Abbas v Hussain & Ors [2023] EWHC 2322 (Ch) (19 September 2023).
This case concerns a claim relating to the beneficial ownership of a development property being the western half (“the Disputed Property”) of the former Tilt Hammer Inn, Alum Rock Road, Birmingham, B8 1Ll and 4-6 Adderley Road, Saltley, Birmingham, B8 1ED (together “Tilt Hammer”).
6. Property Transactions
Bratt v Jones [2024] EWHC 631 (Ch) (22 March 2024).
In this action, the Claimant, Rowland Philip Bratt (“Mr Bratt”), claims damages from the Defendant, Nigel Lawson Jones (“Mr Jones”), in relation to Mr Jones’s determination, as expert valuer, of the value of freehold development land formerly forming part of Cotefield Farm, Bodicote, Banbury, Oxfordshire (“the Site”).
The Property formed the subject matter of an option agreement dated 28 May 2002 (“the Option Agreement”) between Mr Bratt and Banner Homes Ltd[1] (“Banner”) under which Banner was entitled to exercise an option (“the Option”) to purchase the Site at a price representing 90% of market value, to be determined, if not agreed, by a third party valuer. Mr Jones was appointed pursuant to the Option Agreement as such third-party valuer.
39 Fitzjons Avenue Ltd v Revenue And Customs [2024] UKFTT 28 (TC) (4 January 2024)
STAMP DUTY LAND TAX-whether property”mixed use”-railway tunnel ventilation shaft and steel fence on the land-rights of way- building and other restrictions-workshop in house occupied on completion-whether used or suitable for use as a dwelling.
NTT Ltd & Ors v Goodall [2024] EWHC 445 (Comm) (04 March 2024).
Pursuant to an agreement dated 11 October 2019, C3 sold a commercial property known as ‘The Campus’ together with its associated assets and contracts (the “Campus Transaction”) to Identity Property Co Proprietary Limited (“ID Propco”), a subsidiary of the Identity Property Fund (the “Identity Fund”), a Black Economic Empowerment (“BEE”) fund. It is alleged (in summary) that the Defendant together with certain other former executives of C1 and/or its subsidiaries, and an independent contractor, (collectively the “Executives”) deliberately concealed their identities as investors behind the Identity Fund and failed to disclose their conflict of interest in the Campus Transaction to the Claimants and any other entity in the NTT Group.
Ullah v Ullah & Anor [2023] EWHC 3313 (KB) (21 December 2023)
The underlying claim which forms the subject of this appeal relates to seven properties and two in particular, specifically: i) 61 Dudden Hill Lane, London NW10 1BD (“61DHL”) purchased in May 1995 and ii) 91-93 Coldharbour Lane, Hayes, Middlesex UB3 3EF (“91-93 CHL”) purchased in February 1996 (“the two properties”) which were purchased in the name of the Respondent.
Between June 1995 and May 1999, the seven properties, including the two properties the subject of his appeal, were purchased by the Appellant but registered in the Respondent’s name, (the Respondent being his son). The Appellant ran a carpet business in which his sons worked. It is the Appellant’s case that from the retained profits of his business he was able to purchase the properties for investment purposes.
Brem v Clark & Anor [2023] EWHC 1358 (KB) (16 June 2023.
At the heart of the claim is an issue relating to the back garden. It is the claimant’s case that, whilst a tenant, he had enjoyed the use of the whole of the back garden area and that he understood that it was all to be part of the property conveyed to him. However, it is the defendants’ case that the area of garden to be purchased and conveyed was truncated, with a fence demarcating the area being purchased by the claimant. It is the claimant’s case that the value of the property as actually conveyed, with the truncated garden, was £307,000, £18,000 less than the amount he paid and this is the sum he claims against the second defendant. In addition, there are other claims against the first defendant: reinstatement of the full garden; £6,000 paid for access which was not granted; £2,000 paid for money expended by the claimant in clearing the garden and £8,000 being the cost of repairs to the house, a total of £16,000 of asserted losses which were not connected with the claim in respect of the value of the house.
7. Property Litigation
Ahmet v Tatum & Anor [2024] EWCA Civ 255 (15 March 2024).
The appeal relates to the ownership of a property known as Brindles Farmhouse (“Brindles Farmhouse”) in Brindles Close, Hutton, Brentwood. The first respondent, Mr David Tatum, is the registered proprietor of the property but Ms Ahmet contends that she has a beneficial interest in it.
8. Boundaries and Adverse Possession
Clapham & Ors v Narga [2023] EWHC 3337 (Ch) (22 December 2023)
By Appellant’s Notice dated 21 February 2023 the Appellants, Mr and Mrs Clapham and Mrs and Mrs Wright, applied for permission to appeal against the Order dated 7 March 2023 (the “Order“) made by His Honour Judge Hedley (the “Judge“) dismissing their claims for declaratory relief in relation to (1) the location of the boundary between their properties 24 to 26 the Green Thrussington Leicestershire, and the property of the Respondent, Ms Narga, at Brook Barn, Seagrave Road Thrussington Leicestershire; and (2) their claim that they were entitled to be registered as proprietors of two strips of land between their properties and hers.
9. Rights of Way
Price v Nunn [2023] EWHC 3200 (Ch) (19 December 2023)
This judgment follows the trial in a neighbours’ dispute over a right of way which has a litigation life of almost half a century. The dispute as now presented carries with it a procedural narrative and the consequences of six earlier, detailed judicial decisions which bear closely upon the remaining issues that now fall to be determined by me. This highly unusual background adds a degree of complexity and certainly length to this judgment which follows the trial of those issues. Despite the factually contentious claim about a “prescriptive right of way” having disappeared just before the trial, the intricacy of some of those issues is further enhanced by the need for the court, in 2023, to do its best to analyse what the line and status of the track in question might have been some two-and-a-quarter centuries ago.
English 