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When a property is owned by two people as joint tenants (where the title to the property is owned by each of them, so that if one dies, the other inherits the property by survivorship), each of them is considered to be the legal owner of the property. A man...
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After years of litigation, a young woman who suffered life-changing injuries when she was hit by a car as a child has been awarded a compensation settlement worth more than £9 million. Leigh Ann Blinkhorn, now 23, was seven years old when the accident...
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The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has now published its response to the recent consultation on proposals to criminalise squatting. The consultation paper, entitled ‘Options for dealing with squatting’ , received over 2,000 responses. As a first...
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A man who was almost blinded after an accident at work has won an undisclosed amount in damages. Trevor Watson, 42, was working as a drainage engineer. He was instructed to take his truck to a hydraulic specialist because of a blockage in its jetting...
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HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have announced that the Mortgage Verification Scheme (MVS), which was developed in co-operation with the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the Building Societies Association and run as a pilot scheme in March 2010, is now fully...
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A Gulf War veteran who suffered life-changing injuries when he hit a pothole and was thrown from his motorcycle has won an undisclosed amount in compensation from the council responsible for the upkeep of the road. The accident happened in February 2009,...
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When a house is bought or sold, the prospective purchaser makes what are called ‘pre-contract enquiries’ in order to establish the exact details of the property being bought. These are normally in the form of a standard set of questions with any...
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It is common for service charges to be paid ‘on account’ of the annual cost, based on estimates, and a final account to be made up some time after the year end, based on the actual costs incurred. However, not all landlords are diligent about...
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When an elderly woman passed away, her daughter, who was her personal representative, realised that some of her late mother’s land was occupied unlawfully by three people. She brought an action against them , seeking to recover possession of the land...
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A former professional jockey who was injured while working on an equestrian farm has won £22,000 in compensation. Jeffery Kear was working as an equestrian facilities manager at Stockland Lovell, near Bridgwater in Somerset. He had only been employed...
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The UK has been proceeding apace in its attempts to develop ‘green’ energy, and wind turbines are appearing all over the country – including in such seemingly unlikely spots as beside the M25. However, no matter what their benefits as...
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A man who was run over by musician Pete Doherty’s Daimler in 2009 has won an undisclosed amount in compensation at the High Court. Chris Corder, 42, was delivering church newsletters near Hadleigh in Suffolk when the accident happened. He was struck...
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When does a commercial property become vacant under a lease agreement? This was the question considered in a recent hearing in the Court of Appeal . The appeal was brought by haulage and storage firm NYK Logistics (UK) Ltd., a former tenant of Netherlands...
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The recent case in which the court was asked to rule regarding a vacant flat that was part of a property sold at auction – the existence of which neither the vendor nor the purchaser was aware of until after the sale – has now been heard by the...
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A man who was struck by a van while walking through a car park has won £5,500 in damages. The man was returning to his car when he saw a van reversing, so he altered his route so that he passed in front of the vehicle. The van driver quickly changed...
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A developer who completely demolished a property when he only had permission to demolish part of it has landed himself with a fine and legal costs totalling more than £120,000. The developer has been given a year to pay the £80,000 fine and the...
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On 1 October 2011, changes to the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 (normally called the Construction Act) came into force. The changes are contained in Part 8 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 ...
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A textile factory employee who suffered a serious wrist injury when he slipped at work has won £40,000 in an out-of-court settlement. The man, who is in his 60s, slipped on fluid that had leaked from a textile printing machine. He fell backwards and...
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Noisy neighbours can be the bane of one’s existence, so it is no real surprise that a lesbian couple finally lost patience with their adjoining next-door neighbours after they had workmen carrying out extensive building work on their property for a...
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A woman who is disabled as a result of injuries she sustained when she was knocked down by a taxi when she was 14 years old has been awarded £3 million in compensation. Vicki Hart, now 22, was hit by the taxi while crossing the road in Guisborough,...
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When a licensing application cannot be heard because insufficient information has been supplied relating to the primary use of the premises, the licensing authority must decide whether to grant the licence and deal with any issues through enforcement action...
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Before you purchase a property, it is wise to make sure you are aware of the implications of any permitted uses of the land surrounding it. A recent case, in which the courts declined to prevent a landowner from carrying out activities which, although they...
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If a claim is not defended, is a person indemnifying the defendant required to meet the claim in full? This question was at the core of a recent legal case involving a property development. The developer contracted with a subcontractor to carry out...
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A woman who was injured when the car being driven by her husband was involved in an accident has won £34,000 in compensation from his insurers. The 78-year-old woman was being driven home from her son-in-law’s 50th birthday party by her husband....
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A recent case illustrates that, when mistakes occur, it may not always be possible to put them right. A buyer and seller exchanged contracts on a flat, which was being sold by way of a long lease. This seems straightforward enough, but when the plans were...
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Building contracts often involve a multiplicity of documents, which sometimes have conflicting terms. In such cases, the liabilities under the contracts will depend on which of the various contractual terms has primacy over the others. In a recent...
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A mother has won a seven-figure sum in compensation after she was injured in a road accident that left her with life-changing injuries. The 48-year-old woman had driven out to get some milk when her car was hit head-on by the vehicle of a man who had...
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A former BBC Radio Leeds DJ has won compensation for injuries he sustained during a charity stunt. Alex Belfield, 31, was doing a live broadcast in support of Children in Need when he was unexpectedly tackled by two Bradford Bulls rugby league players. He...
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The general principle that ‘the loser pays the costs of the winner’ does not apply to disputes brought before the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT). The maximum amount the LVT can require the loser to pay is £500, and only then in...
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New developments require planning permission, as is well known, and so do projects that affect the environment. But can demolition of an existing building be considered to be a project affecting the environment, thus meaning planning permission is required? ...
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A cyclist who was knocked down by a car that failed to give way has been awarded compensation for his injuries by Market Harborough Magistrates’ Court. The driver of the car, Robin Perry, told the Court that he was making a turn and failed to see the...
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A fence put up by a Devon couple will cost them more than £20,000 in legal fees and re-erection costs after the court decided that it was built a few inches the wrong side of their boundary with their next-door neighbours. The court case was necessary...
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When a document contains errors, the court will often act to ensure that commercial common sense dictates its interpretation. In a recent case, a farmer sought to avoid an estate rentcharge for roads and sewers on the farm estate when the covenants in the...
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Conveyancing is often thought to be a straightforward process, but the truth is very different. Problems with potential fraud, claims by lenders and title disputes are not infrequent. In order to protect consumers, the Law Society launched, in January 2011,...
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A cyclist who was hit by a lorry after he collided with barriers around electrical works has won a settlement worth millions of pounds in compensation for the life-changing injuries he suffered. Alexander Kotula, 27, fell into works barriers on a busy...
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From 6 April 2011, the Competition Act 1998 has been extended to cover agreements made with regard to land. Such agreements were previously excluded from the scope of the Act. The Act seeks to prohibit agreements etc. that prevent, restrict or distort...
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A machine operator who strained his groin while lifting a box in the factory where he worked has won £20,000 in compensation. Barry Lester, 64, was injured while working at the Ford factory in Dagenham. He was trying to lift a box from the top of a...
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A landlord’s attempt to obtain a rent based on the uplifted value of a property was rebuffed by the court because a term in the lease, which was worded in such a way that the rent set by the rent reviews would not take into account improvements made...
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The Government has suggested that councils in rural areas consider changing their planning policies to allow unused farm buildings to be converted to use for residential purposes, rather than insisting that they only be used as farm buildings. This idea is...
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A West Yorkshire cyclist who was injured when his bicycle hit a pothole has been awarded compensation of £2,000. Peter Lodge, 52, was cycling near his home when the front wheel of his bicycle became stuck in a gap that had formed around a water valve...
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An attempt by campaigners to prevent the demolition of a neo-Georgian building by creating a conservation area was recently defeated , following a challenge by the property company that wished to develop the site. The council failed to prevent the...
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A tenant that served a break notice on its lease to the wrong person had a lucky escape recently when the court ruled that the notice was valid because the landlord’s agent had accepted it and this had the effect of waiving the defects in serving it....
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A maintenance operative who was injured after falling from steps erected out of scaffolding has won £44,000 in compensation. The unnamed man, 45, was carrying equipment down the steps when he lost his balance. One of the steps had not been properly...
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A woman has been awarded a compensation settlement worth £4.25 million for injuries she sustained in a road accident when she was a child. Rhiannon Millett, then six years old, was a passenger in a car which was hit head-on by a Land Rover. Her...
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A recent court decision illustrates that where ownership of land changes, rights conferred by covenants over neighbouring land are not necessarily passed on to the new owners. In this case, the former owners of a house had sold part of their garden for...
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Property company Daejan Investments Ltd. has failed in its bid to overturn Tribunal decisions concerning repair works carried out at the company’s Queens Mansions property in Muswell Hill, London. The recent Court of Appeal ruling will cost Daejan...
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Eight Jobcentre employees have won a total of £12,600 in compensation after being exposed to toxic fumes at work. The workers were exposed to a highly toxic chemical called Xylene. Contractors working on a footpath outside the Jobcentre had spilled a...
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A musician who was hit by a car while crossing a road in London has been awarded compensation of more than £1.1 million. Tavenor Douglas, 41, had been out celebrating his birthday on the day the accident happened. He was using a pedestrian crossing...
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When the terms of a house building contract exclude any liability for losses incurred by the client on account of defective works, the client has no redress under a general duty of care. This was the decision of the Court of Appeal in a recent case...
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Who has the right to the airspace above a flat? This question was at the centre of a recent legal dispute involving a block of flats. The block of flats was wider at the bottom than on the upper floors, narrowing at the 6th. The 6th floor tenant obtained...
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When a person continues to use land they do not own over a long period of time, they may acquire an easement (a legal right to use the land). Recently, the Court of Appeal considered the extent of the rights created by easements. The case arose because of...
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The Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) may give tenants the basis of a valid defence against a possession order sought against them. This was the ruling of the Supreme Court in a case in which a council sought to ‘demote’ the tenancy of a tenant as...
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A compensation settlement has been agreed in the case of a factory worker whose colleague leapt onto him at work, resulting in him suffering serious back injuries. William Jones, 46, was bending down to pick up a tool when a colleague jumped onto his back...
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Provisions introduced on 6 April 2007 under the Housing Act 2004 made it a requirement that landlords protect their tenants’ deposits using an authorised Tenancy Deposit Scheme, if they have let the property on an assured shorthold tenancy. The rules...
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In summer 2010, two children died after becoming trapped in electrically powered gates. The accident happened in each case because their presence at the closing edge was not detected and the closing force of the gate when they obstructed it was too great. ...
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A police sergeant who was involved in a motorcycle accident, which left him with impaired mobility and ended his career, has been awarded £370,000 in compensation. Steve Ball was on patrol on his motorcycle when a motorcyclist travelling in the...
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A man who built a house which appeared from the outside to be a barn has lost his battle to obtain a certificate of lawful use for the property. The man originally obtained planning permission to build a barn. He then constructed a fully-equipped...
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A group of tenants who sought to acquire the freehold of the property they occupy met with failure recently , after the Court of Appeal found that the notice served on their landlord was invalid because it was not correctly signed by one of the tenants. ...
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Compensation has been awarded to an ex-Royal Marine who suffered brain injuries after being involved in a vehicle accident during a training exercise. Steward Daglish, 39, was a passenger in a 4x4 vehicle taking part in exercises in Scotland when the...
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The High Court has confirmed the principle that where a lease for a dwelling is held by two tenants, either tenant can give a valid notice to terminate the tenancy. The effect of such a notice is that both tenants will be required to vacate the premises...
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The High Court recently concluded that a property sale could not be subject to an agreement made two decades previously, as the circumstances of the transaction were not envisaged by the original agreement. The agreement related to a building divided into...
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A passenger who suffered serious head injuries in a car accident has been awarded more than £1 million in damages. David Sutton, 25, was travelling in a Nissan car that was involved in a crash with a BMW, on a B-road between Wallingford and Goring in...
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The Court of Appeal recently concluded that a potential property buyer was able to rescind the purchase contract owing to a defect in the title to the property concerned. The buyer had contracted to acquire the property, which was sold at auction, with...
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The Court of Appeal has confirmed that when a local authority has obtained a liability order to claim unpaid council tax and wishes to enforce it using insolvency proceedings, the authority does not have to do so within six years of the granting of the...
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A boatyard worker who suffered brain damage in a workplace fall has been awarded a compensation settlement worth £7.2 million. Kevin Cleightonhills, who was 21 at the time of the accident, was working at a boatyard on the Isle of Wight. He was...
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When the owner of a building intends to carry out work covered by the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 , the owner of an adjoining building has the right to request security from the owner planning the work where this involves a risk to their property. This is so...
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When a development plan is passed which should have been subject to an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) but was not, does the granting of a retrospective consent for EIA development have force or is the planning authority obliged to take action against...
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A young boy who was hit by a car at a pedestrian crossing has been awarded £14,000 in compensation. Liam Brickell, who was three years old at the time of the accident, and his mother were both hit by the vehicle. The accident occurred because the...
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An ongoing dispute between a pensioner and her local authority has demonstrated the importance of considering the impact of planning laws when carrying out work on listed buildings. Sheila New, 72, painted the front of her house a light blue colour in 2008....
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The core provisions of the Equality Act 2010 came into force on 1 October. The Act largely consolidates existing discrimination law, which had previously been found in a number of different pieces of legislation. One of the changes made by the Act is to...
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A nurse who injured her back whilst treating an overweight patient has won her claim for compensation in the High Court. Linda Andrew, 56, was attending the patient, who weighed more than 20 stone, in his own home in order to change the dressings on ulcers...
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A motorist who crashed due to farm waste on the road has been offered £20,500 in compensation for the injuries he suffered. The accident occurred when he drove around a blind corner and ran into a patch of mud and manure that had fallen from a vehicle...
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A dispute between neighbours over whether or not a brook marked the boundary between their properties may well be aired in the Supreme Court after the couple who lost the argument in the Court of Appeal was given permission to appeal against the decision. ...
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If something was described to you as a floating structure moored in a river, you would be forgiven for assuming that what was being described was a boat – but it isn’t necessarily so, as a Norfolk couple found. Using a barge as a base, they...
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Loss of light can be a major irritation and the law provides two remedies where it occurs. The usual remedy is for the developer of the structure responsible for the loss of light to make a payment to the person whose property’s light is impaired. The...
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A builder who entered the ‘buy to let’ market after acting on a negligent valuation has been awarded more than £70,000 by the court . He intended to buy a property to let it out and engaged a firm of surveyors to value the property and to...
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A recent case highlights the importance of making sure that procedural issues are dealt with correctly in the giving of formal notices. When a tenant wished to terminate its lease, it served the relevant notice on the landlord. At least, that is what it...
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A cyclist who was left with a permanent disability as a result of a road accident has been awarded compensation of £280,000. Doris Barrera-Torrico, 31, was cycling along a busy road in North London, on her way to a charity where she did voluntary...
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Virtually all contracts contain provisions which allow the parties concerned to cancel the contract in the event that the other party breaches it. However, with many contracts being complex and imposing a variety of obligations of varying importance on the...
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The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) standard agreement forms have recently been updated. The new forms replace the 2007 versions and are available from the RIBA bookshop ....
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Valuation, as any valuer will tell you, is an imprecise art. Claims against valuers for negligent valuations are therefore notoriously difficult to sustain. Recently, the court heard a claim brought by investors in hotels that a valuer had neglected to...
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A street cleaner whose little finger was injured while he was clearing rubbish from the garden of a council house in Hull has won the right to compensation. Steven Threlfall, 45, was injured when a sharp object in a bin bag severed the artery and nerve in...
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A poorly-drafted plan and a refusal to compromise have led to an argument over the boundary between two rural properties reaching the Court of Appeal . The argument between the owners of adjacent land arose because there was a brook and a fence that were...
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It is not often that decisions are quashed on the basis that the court in which a case was heard got the facts wrong, but a recent planning case shows that it can occur. The case concerned a planning application which related to two sides of a property....
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A teenager who was left almost completely paralysed by a road accident has been awarded a settlement estimated to be worth more than £17.5 million. Chrissie Johnson was 16 when the car in which she was a passenger collided with a lorry in 2006. After...
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An agricultural worker has been awarded a compensation settlement of £71,000 after his leg became caught in a potato harvesting machine, resulting in serious injuries. Stephen Hyndman, 28, was carrying out seasonal work for an agricultural contractor...
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A tenant wishing to vacate premises by terminating its lease should read the break clauses in the lease carefully and comply fully with them: failing to do so can prove to be an expensive mistake. A recent case dealt with a dispute over a notice to...
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A tolerated trespasser is a person who has had an eviction order made against them but who remains in occupation of the property with the landlord’s acquiescence because they continue to pay rent. Since the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 came...
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Two landlords were recentlly successful in persuading the High Court that a Corporate Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), under which they stood to lose the benefit of a guarantee for their rent, was ‘unfairly prejudicial’ to them as defined by...
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An ambulance service worker has agreed a settlement of £6,000 in compensation after he fell down a flight of steps at work. The man was going down some steps into the garage where his ambulance was parked when he slipped on a cup of coffee, which had...
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It is often thought that an appeal to the Court of Appeal will lead to the resolution of a dispute, but in some cases, the Court will merely decide that another hearing is necessary. In a recent case , the Court heard an appeal concerning a boundary...
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A sale and leaseback agreement between a landlord and tenant was the subject of a recent court case . The decision turned on whether it was reasonable to refuse to comply with the agreement if vacant possession of a very small portion of the property could...
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A former champion cyclist has been awarded a record sum in compensation after a road accident that left him with life-changing injuries. Manny Helmot, 39, was out on a training ride when he was hit head-on by a speeding car. He sustained serious injuries...
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A construction worker has won a compensation settlement of £600,000 after his arm was partially severed in an accident at work. The man was working on a construction site where a JCB digger was in use. The driver was having difficulty releasing the...
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A recent case confirms that for the purposes of the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 , which gives tenants of let houses the right to buy them in appropriate circumstances, a ‘house’ need not be used as a residence in order for the right to buy to be...
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One of the reasons a contract can be abandoned is that the performance of the contract is ‘frustrated’ – something happens which makes it impossible to complete. In August 2007, the builders Barratt contracted with site owner Gold Group...
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A motorcyclist who was seriously injured in a road accident has been awarded a substantial sum in compensation. The unnamed woman, who was training to be a nurse, collided with an oncoming car that turned across her path when she had the right of way. She...
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A man who was left permanently disabled by a workplace accident has been awarded £50,000 compensation for his injuries, in addition to the owner of the business he worked for being fined. Gary Hounsome was injured while he was helping to unload...
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It has been commonly accepted that where a construction contract gives rise to ‘liquidated and ascertained damages’ (LADs) for breach of the contract terms, the liability for the LADs ends when the contract is terminated. It now appears that that...
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If you are thinking of buying a property, it is important to be aware of any covenants or easements relating to it. Almost two thirds of freehold properties are subject to an easement (which gives someone other than the owner a right over the land), and...
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Local Fire Authorities no longer issue fire certificates. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 introduced a risk-based approach to fire safety, making it a legal requirement for the person responsible to carry out a fire-risk assessment for all...
