Trawl: Property Law UK Update Info for Newsletter Editors
| Trawl date | 10 June 2024 |
| Article deadline | 19 June 2024 |
Contents – topic areas
- Residential – Landlord & Tenant
- Residential Lease Management
- Commercial Property
- Commercial Leases
- Property Transactions
- Property Litigation
- Building Safety Act
- Rights of Way
- Restrictive Covenants
- Nuisance and Trespass
- Co-ownership and Estoppel
1. Residential – Landlord & Tenant
Weintraub v London Borough of Hackney [2024] EWHC 845 (Ch)
The Court determined that an elderly tenant occupied a property as his only or principal home, so he was entitled to exercise the right to buy: although he spent most of his nights elsewhere, he spent time there most days and intended to resume sleeping at the property once the right to buy process was complete (because he could then carry out works which would enable someone else to sleep in the property with him).
Rahimi v City of Westminster Council [2024] EWCA Civ 73 (05 February 2024)
Court of Appeal considers whether actions of a landlord and joint tenants could lead to an inference that a joint tenancy had been surrendered and regranted as a new sole tenancy.
Donovan v Prescott Place Freeholder Ltd & Ors [2024] EWCA Civ 298 (27 March 2024)
Court of Appeal considers whether the right of first refusal provided to qualifying tenants under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 had priority over the rights of a ‘recalcitrant’ freeholder.
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. Commercial Property
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”).
4. Commercial Leases
Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Limited v Medley Assets Limited
In this case, the Claimant, who is the tenant, seeks a new lease of 329-331 Kentish Town Road, London NW5 2TJ (the Property), pursuant to s.29 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (the Act). The Defendant, who is the landlord, opposes the grant of a new tenancy on ground (f) of s.30(1) of the Act and this is the trial of that preliminary issue.
5. Property Transactions
Allen v Webster [2024] EWHC 988 (Ch) (29 April 2024)
By an order dated 13 March 2023 (the “Order”), Recorder Maguire (the “Judge”), sitting at the County Court at Central London, declared that the property known as at situate at Tyndale Villas, Sartar Road, Nunhead, London SE15 3BB (the “Property”) was held by the Appellant and Respondent upon trust for them as tenants in common in the following terms: 8% for the Appellant; and 92% for the Respondent.
The central issue on this appeal is whether the Judge correctly declared the beneficial interest in the Property as vesting 92% in the Respondent and 8% in the Appellant.
Conway v Conway & Anor [2024] EW Misc 19 (CC) (31 May 2024)
The sole or principal issue in this case is whether the Defendants are entitled to require the Claimant to transfer the property known as “the Barn”, which is part of a much larger property that the Claimant owns known as Church Farm, Hospital Lane in Bedworth, CV12 OJZ, to the Defendants.
Niprose Investments Ltd & Ors v Vincents Solicitors Ltd (Professional negligence) [2024] EWHC 801 (Ch) (17 April 2024).
Professional negligence – Solicitors – Defendants’ application for strike out or summary judgment – Defendants acted for purchasers of 50 residential units in a buyer-funded, off-plan development scheme – Purchasers losing their substantial up-front payments on failure of development and suing their conveyancing solicitors for breach of duty – Extent of duty on purchasers’ solicitors – Whether duty to advise that deposit-holding machinery offered no meaningful protection – Whether duty to advise purchasers against risks of investing in development – Whether duty to ensure advice fully understood – Whether solicitors in breach of duty – Whether loss of purchasers’ investments legally attributable to any breach of duty – Whether claim sufficiently pleaded – Whether purchasers’ claims should be struck out or summary judgment entered for defendant solicitors.
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.
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.
6. Property Litigation
Taylor v Savik & Anor [2024] EW Misc 18 (CC) (21 May 2024)
The case involved Tracy Ann Taylor, the trustee in bankruptcy for Philip Ryle, who sought orders concerning a property registered in the name of Olga Savik. The property, known as The Grange, was alleged to have been purchased with money provided by Ryle. The trustee’s application was based on the doctrine of sham, transactions at undervalue under section 339 of the Insolvency Act 1986, and fraud on creditors under section 423 of the same Act.
Morris & Ors v Williams & Co Solicitors (A Firm) [2024] EWCA Civ 376 (18 April 2024)
In this case, the 134 claimants (the Claimants) issued a single claim form against Williams & Co Solicitors (the Solicitors). Each of the Claimants sought damages for breaches of the Solicitors’ duty to advise properly in relation to their investments in one or more of 9 separate development projects promoted by the same group of companies. HH Judge Jarman KC (the judge) dismissed the Solicitors’ application to strike out the claim form under CPR Part 3.4(2)(b) and/or (c) because it was an abuse of process or an obstruction to the just disposal of the proceedings, or the claim form did not comply with CPR Part 7.3 (7.3).
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.
7. Building Safety Act
USAF Nominee No. 18 Ltd & Ors v Watkin Jones & Son Ltd [2023] EWHC 1880 (TCC) (26 July 2023)
In this case, there are three Claimants, USAF Nominee No. 18 Limited, USAF Nominee No. 18A Limited and Apex Group Trustee Services Limited. They are all, or purport to be, trustees of one kind or another. The Defendant, Watkin Jones & Son Ltd (“WJ”) is a building contractor. The claims concern what is said to have been the defective design and construction of the external façade of a building known as Jennens Court in Birmingham (“the Property”). The contract under which WJ was engaged was a JCT 1998 Edition with Contractor’s Design, with bespoke amendments, dated 4 July 2007, for the design and construction of 586 ensuite student bedrooms in cluster flats, some retail units and a dance studio (“the Development”). The cost of the Development was £17.98m. Practical Completion occurred on 27 July 2009 with a Final Certificate issued on the same day.
URS Corporation Ltd v BDW Trading Ltd [2023] EWCA Civ 772 (03 July 2023)
BDW Trading Limited (“BDW”) instructed URS Corporation Ltd (“URS”) to carry out structural design on two buildings in London and Leicester. When reviewing these buildings in 2019 (following the Grenfell Tower disaster), they found them structurally defective due to an inadequate design.
BDW issued proceedings. The BSA came into effect during proceedings, and the new time limit enabled BDW to add further claims under the DPA, which URS challenged.
Kajima Construction Europe (UK) Ltd & Anor v Children’s Ark Partnership Ltd [2023] EWCA Civ 292 (17 March 2023)
On 10 June 2004 CAPL entered into a PFI Project Agreement with the Brighton and Sussex University Hospital NHS Trust (the “Trust”) to design, build and finance the redevelopment of the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children in Brighton (the “Hospital”) (the “Project Agreement”). On the same date CAPL entered into a sub-contract with Kajima to design and build the Hospital (the “Construction Contract”). In 2018, following construction of the Hospital, numerous fire defects were discovered, entitling the Trust to apply deductions to payments made to CAPL under the Project Agreement. CAPL sought reimbursement of the sum of such deductions from Kajima under the Construction Contract.
8. 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.
9. Restrictive Covenants
Robertson v Pace [2024] UKUT 123 (LC) (20 May 2024)
Restrictive Covenants – discharge – covenant restricting use of land to agricultural purposes – whether covenant was obsolete or could be discharged without injury – s.84(1) (a) and (c), Law of Property Act 1925 – application refused.
Medley v Mackenzie & Ors [2024] UKUT 112 (LC) (08 May 2024)
RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS – MODIFICATION – consent covenant in favour of dissolved company – obsolescence – benefit of other covenants annexed to the company’s land – one house, one plot covenant – practical benefits of substantial advantage – scale, density, open aspect – application refused.
10. Nuisance and Trespass
AIUL v Alex Wainwright and Persons Unknown [2023] 5 WLUK 613
The case concerns the court’s finding that continuing to fly a drone over private property amounted to trespass.
10. Co-ownership and Estoppel
FG, R (On the Application Of) v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea [2024] EWHC 780 (Admin) (09 April 2024)
High Court rules that equitable doctrine of proprietary estoppel prevents assertion of a right to possession under a lease of part of a building that was subsequently extended and occupied by the claimant.
English 