Trawl: Property Law UK Update Info for Newsletter Editors
| Trawl date | 03 October 2024 |
| Article deadline | 21 October 2024 |
Contents – topic areas
- Residential – Landlord & Tenant
- Residential Leasehold
- Residential Lease Management
- Business Lease Renewal
- Property Transactions
- Property Litigation
- Rights of Way
- Nuisance and Trespass
- Easements
- Mortgages
- Mobile Homes and Caravans
1. Residential – Landlord & Tenant
London Borough of Tower Hamlets v Lessees of Brewster House and Malting House [2024] UKUT 193 (LC) (11 July 2024).
LANDLORD AND TENANT – SERVICE CHARGES – construction of the lease – remedying structural defects in the Large Panel System – meaning of covenant ‘to maintain’ – significance of a ‘sweeper clause.’
29 Buckland Crescent Management Company Ltd v White [2024] EWHC 1480 (Ch) (19 June 2024).
The Appellant (the “Landlord”) is the freehold owner of a building known as 29 Buckland Crescent (the “Block”) which is divided into four flats. The Respondent (“Mr White”) is the lessee of a flat on the second floor (the “Flat”). The question raised by this appeal is whether the Landlord was entitled to take proceedings seeking forfeiture of Mr White’s lease, or whether that was precluded by the terms of a settlement agreement dated 26 April 2022 (the “Settlement Agreement”) pursuant to which the Landlord and Mr White had compromised an earlier dispute between them. In an oral judgment (the “Judgment”) given on 7 November 2023, HHJ Dight CBE (the “Judge”) concluded that the Settlement Agreement did preclude the Landlord from bringing forfeiture proceedings. The Landlord appeals against that conclusion.
Stella v Hodge Jones & Allan LLP [2024] EWHC 1704 (SCCO) (02 July 2024)
The Claimant retained the Defendant in September 2017 in a dispute concerning a property known as 49A The Chase, London, SW4 0NT (‘the ‘Property’). Initially the action concerned a dispute with the Claimant’s landlord about unpaid service charges, but it expanded to include a claim for disrepair, allegations of harassment and a disagreement with a neighbour about overhanging trees.
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.
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.
2. Residential Leasehold
A1 Properties (Sunderland) Ltd v Tudor Studios RTM Company Ltd [2024] UKSC 27 (16 August 2024)
This appeal is concerned with the operation of the regime in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 (“the CLRA”) under which qualifying tenants may acquire the right to take over the management of their block of flats through the formation and interposition of a right to manage (“RTM”) company.
3. 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.
4. Business Lease Renewal
AP Wireless II (UK) Ltd v On Tower UK Ltd [2024] UKUT 263 (LC) (09 September 2024).
ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS CODE – CODE AGREEMENTS – LEASE/LICENCE DISPUTE – sites in open country – agreements entered into granting code operator the right to install and operate telecommunications equipment – whether agreements took effect as leases or licences – whether one of the agreements was granted for a term which was capable of being a term certain – whether either or both of the agreements granted exclusive possession of a defined area of land to the code operator – decision that both agreements did grant exclusive possession of a defined area of land – decision that only one of the agreements took effect as a lease because, in the case of the other agreement, the agreement was not granted for a term which was capable of being a term certain and took effect only as a licence – appeal allowed in part.
5. Property Transactions
Singh v Garcha & Ors [2024] EWHC 1844 (Ch) (22 July 2024).
This case involved an appeal against a decision dismissing the trustee in bankruptcy’s claim for a declaration of beneficial interest in three properties owned by the bankrupt and her husband.
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.
6. Property Litigation
Lindsay v O’Loughnane & Ors [2024] EWHC 2232 (KB) (28 August 2024)
Judgment in relation to Applications made by the applicant claimant Sean Lindsay (“the claimant”) to have the proceeds of sale of various properties (“the Properties”) to be paid out to him as the person entitled to the benefit of final charging orders obtained over the Properties securing a substantial judgment debt payable by the first defendant/respondent Jared O’Loughnane (“Jared”) who was their registered owner. The second respondent (James French, “French”) and the fourth respondent (Andrew Heaphy, “Heaphy”) each contend (French having died during the trial now by Karen Drayton who has been appointed to represent his estate (“the French Estate”) for these purposes) that they each have the benefit of equitable charges over the Properties which were created earlier in time than and so have priority over the claimant’s charging orders.
Parker v Parker-Bowyer & Ors [2024] EWHC 2239 (Ch) (05 September 2024)
This claim is part of an especially acrimonious father/son dispute. In it, somewhat unusually, I must determine whether the Claimant, on his own case, is now lying about being untruthful in a key document. I adopt the first names of the parties and witnesses for ease of reference and with no disrespect. The father, the Claimant, Mike, claims first against one of his two sons, the First Defendant, Tom, for a declaration that Tom holds a property known as the House on constructive trust for him (“the Trust Claim”). Secondly Mike claims against Tom and the Second Defendant, Tom’s wife Kim, for an order for delivery up or payment of the value of what Mike says are valuable goods left by him in the House (“the Chattels Claim”), and thirdly against all three Defendants for damages for conversion of various of the chattels. BAILII link
Rarity Holdings Ltd v Parkhill [2024] EWHC 1637 (Ch) (27 June 2024)
This case involved a dispute between Rarity Holdings Ltd and David Samuel Parkhill concerning the validity of a property sale contract and the return of a deposit.
Sully & Ors v Mazur & Anor [2024] EWHC 1999 (KB) (02 August 2024)
The Claimants are siblings. Sunhill House, a property in rural Sussex, was in the Claimants’ family for many years. It was occupied by the Claimants’ parents until they moved to Somerset in late August 2023. They sought a buyer and, after one sale fell through, they eventually succeeded in selling it in March 2024. The Defendants live in a nearby property, Rystwood Lodge. Between the two properties is a field (‘the Field’). This too has been in the Claimants’ family for many years and is presently owned by the Claimants, who would like to sell it. They allow a local person to graze sheep on it. The only vehicular access to the Field is from the driveway to Rystwood Lodge (the Drive) via a gate close to the beginning of the Drive. The Drive is owned by the Defendants but the owners of the Field have a right of way over it. The Drive also serves another property, Rystwood Acre.
The Defendants are strongly opposed to the Field being built on for housing. The Claimants say they have never wished to build on the Field but the Defendants are concerned that they will sell it to someone who does. As long ago as March 2021, the Defendants wrote to the Claimants stating, “we will do whatever it takes to protect the value of our estate”. The Claimants’ parents offered to sell the Field to the Defendants but negotiations broke down.
Passi & Ors v Hansrani [2024] EWHC 2062 (Ch) (05 August 2024)
This case concerns property ownership within a family which is not clearly recorded in writing and exacerbated by the absence of wills from the parents. This is multiplied as the dispute relates to not one property but eleven. As a result, a brother on one side and his three sisters on the other have between them spent over £800,000 feuding about their properties.
London Capital & Finance Plc & Ors v Thomson & Ors [2024] EWHC 1684 (Ch) (24 June 2024)
There are two applications before the court. The first is an application dated 6 June by the fifth defendant for the withdrawal of a unilateral notice, which was made by the claimants in December 2023 in respect of a property owned by the fifth defendant near Lechlade (“The Property”). The second is an application by the claimants against the fifth defendant for a proprietary freezing injunction in respect of the traceable proceeds of money which derived ultimately from the first claimant (“LCF”), including the Property.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. Easements
Akhtar & Ors v Khan & Ors [2024] EWHC 1519 (Ch) (17 June 2024).
This judgment follows the trial of a cross claims for prescriptive easements for the benefit of and over adjoining properties; and claims for damages/injunctive relief for assault, battery, harassment, nuisance and/or trespass.
10. Mortgages
Carvill-Biggs & Anor v Reading [2024] EWCA Civ 1005 (05 September 2024)
The Appellant, his wife, and family members occupy a property known as Furzefield, Holwood Park Avenue, Orpington BR6 8NQ (“the Property”), a six-bedroom house on a one-acre gated estate. The freehold is held by Rose Cottage Farm Limited (“the Company”), a special purpose vehicle created by the Appellant to acquire the Property in 2022, where he was the sole director. The purchase price was about £2.5 million.
In August 2022, TFG Capital No.2 Limited (“TFG2”) lent £2.85 million to the Company, secured by a mortgage on the Property and a floating charge on the Company’s other assets. The Property, valued at £3.5–£4 million, was recently let at £9,250 pcm. The loan documents prohibited the Company from allowing the Property to be occupied by anyone connected to it, but the Appellant and his family moved in during early 2023. They have not contended that they have any formal lease or other agreement with the Company entitling them to remain there.
The Company defaulted on the loans in April 2023. On 3 August 2023, TFG2 appointed LPA receivers for the Property. TFG2 initiated possession proceedings in Bromley County Court on 16 August 2023, under CPR 55, to sell the Property free of the Appellant’s occupation.
Breeze & Ors v TSB Bank PLC (Rev1) [2024] EWHC 2427 (Ch) (25 September 2024)
The Claimants in this action are some 392 former mortgage customers of Northern Rock whose mortgages and/or loans were transferred to TSB (or are alleged to have been so transferred – TSB claims that it has not verified that all of these Claimants are, or were, its customers). They are undertaking a group legal action against TSB. I understand that there are a further 2,000 or so mortgage customers who are in a similar position that have intimated claims against TSB and have entered into a standstill agreement with TSB pending the outcome of this group litigation, or at least of the preliminary issues that I am dealing with in this judgment.
11. Mobile Homes and Caravans
Hurley & Anor v Turner’s Regency Parks Ltd [2024] UKUT 231 (LC) (07 August 2024)
PARK HOMES – PROCEDURE – pitch fee review – notice of application served by tribunal on only one of two joint respondents – notice of application served by email and diverted to junk folder – pitch fee determination made without participation by respondents – rules 16(1), 29(1) and 51, Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Property Chamber) Rules 2013 – appeal allowed and determination set aside.
English 