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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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? ...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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. ...

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. ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ....

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

An easement (such as a right of way) is a right over someone else’s land. A right of easement, once granted, is quite often forgotten about. However, a recent case shows how important it can be to make sure that an easement does not lapse through...

Litigation can be expensive and there are good reasons in many cases for achieving a resolution by mediation when possible. The best course of action will depend on the individual circumstances of the case. Recently, a court case was settled after a...

Social Housing providers will greet a recent decision of the Supreme Court with relief. The Court upheld a local council’s decision that it had discharged its duty to secure accommodation for persons who were homeless by sending each of them a...

Little publicised, but nonetheless important for many private landlords, are changes implemented by the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Amendment) (England) Order 2010 , which mean that, in certain circumstances, a landlord wishing to let out a...

Most people – and certainly those who have been involved in an opposed planning application – know what a NIMBY is but, following a case heard in the Supreme Court, we may now see the rise of NOOViGs (not on our village greens). The reason for...

Construction projects inevitably lead to a large number of contracts being created between the various contractors, subcontractors, suppliers and developers involved. This in turn can produce problems in the event of a dispute, as it can be difficult to...

Insolvencies have been running at a high rate for some time now, presenting problems for landlords and tenants alike. It should be remembered that the expenses of the administration of an insolvent company rank for payment before debts due to unsecured...

Many developers have been faced with the problem of having to persuade buyers who bought ‘off plan’ before the credit crunch struck to complete their purchases in the light of the subsequent decline in property prices. If you are faced with such...

When a tenant’s lease is governed by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 , the landlord has limited grounds for refusing to renew the lease. One possible ground is that the landlord wishes to make use of the premises for its own business purposes. In a ...

A company that was part of a group recently found that it had breached its lease when a corporate reorganisation was carried out. The problem arose because the lease on the company’s premises contained a clause that the tenant company was allowed to...

Following a refusal of planning permission, it is far from unusual for the unsuccessful application to be amended and re-submitted in the hope that, the second time, the outcome will be different. A recent case arose from this situation,...

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has been campaigning for the past few years to try to encourage more commercial landlords to accept monthly rental payment arrangements instead of the quarterly payments commonly used. Although the BRC began pushing for...

Builders and homeowners who wish to delay the start of building projects in these troubled times can breathe more easily now that the time limits for extensions to planning permissions have been lengthened. From 1 October 2009, an application to extend the...

In a recent case, the courts had to consider the legality of a commercial arrangement undertaken by a bank with a company, the effect of which was to allow the company to ‘stand in its shoes’ with regard to a commercial lease. At issue was...

If a landlord has concealed or misrepresented facts, it can be ordered to pay a departing commercial tenant compensation for any damages or loss sustained by the tenant that arise as a result of having to quit the premises. The legislation bringing this...

A recent case illustrates how complex building disputes can become when there are changes ‘on the fly’ to the work being carried out and the related paperwork does not keep pace. In the case in point, a contractor’s contract to fit out a...

Under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (LTA), a tenant normally has the right to renewal of a lease on commercial premises unless the landlord requires occupation of the premises for its own purposes, which may include the purpose of redeveloping the site....

A recent case shows how important the wording of a planning consent is. It concerned a quarrying company which was engaged in the extraction of limestone from a quarry in the Peak District. There was opposition to the quarrying which led to a review of the...

People who want to buy a property but do not currently have the means to do so, or who simply want to be guaranteed the opportunity to buy it during a specified period or at some future date, will often undertake an option agreement with the owner. Under...

With times being tough, unexpected traps in agreements are coming to light with greater regularity. A recent landlord and tenant case shows the sort of thing that can happen if insufficient attention is paid in negotiation to clauses that might seem...

Landlords seeking to recover service charges in circumstances which require that a notice be served on the tenants should make sure they serve the relevant notice correctly! In a recent case, a landlord had to do works on a building and sought to recover the...

The 2007 case involving Persimmon Homes and landowner Chartbrook Ltd. has now been decided in the House of Lords. The case turned on the meaning of an agreement which contained a ‘grammatical ambiguity’, which applied to a formula used to...

The widow of a man who died as a result of being exposed to asbestos while working at an oil refinery many years earlier has been awarded more than £300,000 in compensation in the High Court. Frances Streets’ husband began his career working for...

Occupiers of business premises are reminded that appeals against the rateable values of their premises (based on the 1 April 2008 valuation)  must be made by the end of this week. That valuation will affect your rates bill from April 2010. The...

A man who fell from a London bus and suffered severe head injuries has been awarded a seven-figure compensation settlement. Vincenzo Bollito, a 36-year-old designer, was between the doors of the bus when the driver closed them and accelerated down the road....

It is common that where a lease is sublet or where the lease is to a company, a guarantee arrangement will be put in place whereby the former tenant or a director of the lessee company guarantees performance of the lease. In the event that the tenant fails...

According to statistics provided by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), asbestos is the single greatest cause of work-related deaths in the UK. Every year 1,000 people who have been involved in carrying out building maintenance and repair work die as a...

Sometimes, the courts are called upon to decide matters which are so obvious that the mind boggles as to how a case was brought in the first place. A recent case involving a local council is just such a puzzle. The council was concerned that the dilapidated...

It is common for the licence of managed premises to be held in the name of the owner of the premises (such as a brewery) rather than that of the tenant, since it makes it administratively more simple if the tenant changes. However, if the tenant then...

When a developer bought a piece of land, intending to build an office block, it was in for a shock. The land benefited from an easement granting access over adjacent land (the garden of a house). This allowed the right of passage of utility companies over...

It is common for leases to stipulate that, if a dispute arises, the matter should be referred to arbitration. However, the decision of the arbitrator can be overturned in some circumstances. If the arbitrator’s decision is seriously flawed – for...

It is normal for there to be a procedure by which a contract can be ‘determined’ (brought to an end) if a contractor who is undertaking a project fails to meet the agreed milestones.  In a recent case, a council sought to...

Many tenants are looking to terminate commercial leases which, as a result of the recession, are no longer economically viable. Break clauses have therefore probably received more attention from tenants during the past year or so than they have since...

The Court of Appeal has recently heard a case dealing with the right to light, a subject which has been a frequent cause of disputes in the past. It concerned a company that owned a piece of land and which made an agreement with a developer that...

Firms dealing with gypsum waste, such as plasterboard and plaster, should be aware of changes to the law regarding its disposal. The disposal of gypsum waste and other waste with a high sulphate content to landfill together with biodegradable waste has been...

In a case that will be of interest to employers considering making redundancies, the Court of Appeal has dismissed, by a two to one majority, Rolls Royce’s appeal against a decision of the High Court ( Rolls Royce plc v Unite the Union ). Rolls...

According to figures released by the Ministry of Justice, the number of property repossessions for mortgage and rent arrears fell sharply in the first quarter of 2009 compared with 2008. The drop was more than 40 per cent and was far larger than anticipated....

Planning permissions granted do not have infinite duration and, to avoid the lapse of the permission, it is necessary to commence development work (a ‘material operation’ in the terms used in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 ) within the...

A developer which revised a plan for a housing development and then found the revised plan too expensive was left to rue the decision after the court ruled that despite the fact that a planning inspector’s comments about the viability of the new plan...

More and more landlords are likely to be having to deal with the administrators appointed to manage the businesses of insolvent tenants. A recent decision of the Court of Appeal will be unwelcome to landlords as it led the Court to conclude that mere loss...

Tenants who undertook leases after 1 December 2003, which was when Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) came into effect, are reminded that it may be necessary for them to submit a new SDLT return and the result may be additional SDLT to pay or a refund of SDLT. ...

One of the remedies available to a landlord when rent is not paid is to forfeit the lease and to take possession of the premises. However, if this course of action is intended, it should be remembered that acceptance of rent acts to waive the...

Disputes between landlords and tenants over what is and what is not proper to include in the service charges paid by the tenants are commonplace. As in all instances, the wording of the tenancy agreement is crucial, as a recent case illustrates. It involved...

It is by no means common for a question as simple as ‘what is rent?’ (or, as more exactly put by Mr Justice Lewison, “What counts as ‘rent’ for the purposes of a notice to pay given under Schedule 2 of the Agricultural Holdings...

Given the importance of the effect of the exercise of an option, it is not in any way surprising that the courts normally adopt a strict approach to adherence to the precise terms of the option agreement. In a recent case, a tenant had the benefit of an...

Attempting to settle a construction dispute by the use of an adjudicator often seems to create more problems than it solves, as a recent case illustrates. It involved a firm which built stairs under contract from another firm which had been contracted to...

A case involving a dispute over the tenancy under various leases of industrial units in East Sussex, which were used for the preparation of airline meals, illustrates the importance of being careful what you agree to. Although the circumstances were rather...

A recent case will come as a relief to developers as it confirms that where a developer creates new self-contained flats out of the empty roof space of an existing residential building, the flats will qualify for zero-rating for VAT purposes. In...

The Human Rights Act 1998 applies only to public bodies, so where a claim under the Act is made, it is first necessary to ascertain whether the organisation against which the claim is made is a public body. Recently, the question came before the...

Most leases contain clauses which permit their assignment from one tenant to another, provided this is done with the landlord’s approval, and they also contain a clause specifying that approval is not to be ‘unreasonably withheld’. In a...

Shortly before Christmas, the House of Lords heard a long-awaited case which has implications for many landlords and their tenants.  It denied an appeal by the Earl of Cadogan and others against a well reported ruling in which landlords were...

In a recent case, the purchaser of a freehold office building went to court to obtain rectification (putting right a manifest mistake)  of the agreement for sale. Part of the purchase documentation was dealt with by side letters, because the purchaser...

Failure to adhere to lease terms is a dangerous strategy for tenants who wish to renew their leases. A commercial tenant at Heathrow Airport, whose use of his business premises had been the subject of numerous enforcement notices because of breaches of...

The Court of Appeal has overturned a 2007 decision and its judgment may make tenants who are considering assigning their leases pause for thought. The circumstances were that tenants assigned their lease, with the permission of the landlord, to new...

On trading estates, car parks and roads are a frequent source of dispute. The division of the cost of their repair can be an issue, particularly where, for example, one trader has particularly heavy traffic to and from their unit. Another area for dispute is...

It is often considered that when a pattern of behaviour develops which is at variance with a contract, the legal effect is that the contract is informally varied. This may not be the case, as a firm which repeatedly failed to pay it invoices on time found...

The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s announcement that the standard rate of VAT is to be reduced from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent was possibly the most widely leaked Government decision in recent years and will come as welcome news to the poorest in the...

The Health and Safety Executive has updated its website on managing occupational health risks in the construction industry, providing new information for Construction Design and Management coordinators (CDMs). The website gives information for CDMs,...

Nowadays, it is becoming less and less common for business to be transacted ‘on a handshake’ and a recent case highlights the dangers of failing to get formal documentation in place to confirm the terms of an agreement. The case involved a...

Landlords will breathe a sigh of relief following the recent reversal of the much-reported Scottish and Newcastle v Raguz case. It dealt with the requirement for landlords to serve notices on former tenants on each outstanding payment date during the rent...

The Court of Appeal has issued a ruling which will be unwelcome to social landlords that allow tenants in arrears to become ‘tolerated trespassers’, when a possession order is suspended because the tenant is paying off the arrears of rent which...

A recent ruling by the Court of Appeal has resulted in a fortunate property owner being awarded £1.6 million in compensation for the compulsory purchase of land with an agreed market valuation of only £15,000. Rejecting an appeal by the London...

Letters of intent are widely used in the building trade, because it is normal for both developer and contractor to wish to make progress on a building project without having to wait until the formal contractual arrangements have been fully agreed. However,...

With the recession beginning to bite, many occupiers of rented property are looking to move to less expensive premises or reduce the space they currently occupy. If you are thinking along these lines, here are some tips which may help you determine your...

Don't let the post-holiday rush distract you from meeting the deadline for claiming relief from business rates. Small Business Rate Relief applies where the Rateable Value (RV) of business premises is less than £15,000 (£21,500 in...