UKI (Kingsway) Ltd v Westminster City Council [2018] UKSC 67 Although on the topic of service of a rates notice, this Supreme Court case provides general guidance on the service of notices, relevant to most property cases. A local authority served a...

The Alexander Devine Children's Cancer Trust v Millgate Developments Ltd and others [2018] EWCA Civ 2679 The Court of Appeal has refused to allow a property developer to modify a set of restrictive covenants, reversing the decision of the Upper Trib...

Bracken Hill Court at Ackworth Management Company Ltd v Dobson [2018] UKUT 333 (LC) The Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) has upheld an appeal from a management company and determined that contracts of less than 12 months are not Qualifying Long T...

Ashtead Plant Hire Company Limited v Granton Central Developments Limited [2019] CSOH 7 This case involves a landlord and tenant dispute over the proper construction of the rent review provisions in a lease of commercial premises.  The parties ...

Ramoyle Developments Limited v Scottish Borders Council [2019] CSOH 1 A local authority entered a contract to sell an area of land for regeneration.  Either party to the contract was entitled to withdraw from the sale if the purchasers failed t...

Cine-UK Limited v Union Square Developments Ltd [2019] CSOH 3 A landlord and tenant couldn’t agree revised rent due in terms of a rent review. An expert surveyor was appointed to determine the issue in accordance with the provisions of the lea...

At the end of last year the High Court was asked to decide the proper meaning of a rent deposit deed relating to a deposit of over £2 million. The deposit allowed the landlord security for, amongst others, "any proper loss which the landlord m...

Shirley Ann Thorpe v (1) Harald Nobert Frank (2) Lesley Frank [2019] EWCA Civ 150 The Court of Appeal has recently found that by paving an area an individual had done enough to establish that she had acquired the land by adverse possession. The Clai...

Robert James Oakley, Carolyn Oakley, Jonathan Mark Page, Union Pension Trustees Limited, Morgan Lloyd Trustees Limited v Harper McKay Developments Limited [2018] EWHC 3405 (Ch) The Court recently had to consider whether claimant sellers were entitle...

Churston Golf Club Ltd v Richard Haddock [2019] EWCA Civ 544 The Court of Appeal has overturned both the High Court and earlier County Court decisions and found that a covenant to fence should not be treated as a fencing easement capable of binding ...

Warwickshire Aviation Ltd & 6 Ors v Littler Investments Ltd [2019] EWHC 633 Tenants of an airfield recently failed in their appeal to the High Court to show that their landlord wasn’t able to oppose new leases being granted to them pursuan...

(1) Giles Duncan Fearn (2) Gerald Kraftman (3) Ian Mcfadyen (4) Helen Claire McFadyen (5) Lindsay Urquart –v- The Board of Trustees of the Tate Gallery [2019] EWHC 246 (Ch) The High Court has dismissed a claim by residents of luxury glass-fron...

Wells v Devani [2019] UKSC 4 Earlier this year the Supreme Court unanimously decided that the claimant, Devani, an estate agent and the defendant, Wells, a property developer had entered into a binding oral contract. The parties were introduced by a...

New Crane Wharf Freehold Ltd v Jonathan Mark Dovener [2019] UKUT 98 (LC) A lease covenant requiring the tenant defendant, Mr Dovener, to “permit” its landlord “…at al...

(1) SHB Realisations Ltd and (2) GB Europe Management Service Ltd v (1) Cribbs Mall Nominee (1) Ltd and (2) Cribbs Mall Nominee (2) Ltd. The County Court recently considered a claim for relief from forfeiture involving premises previously occupied b...

Telereal Trillium v Hewitt (Valuation Officer) [2019] UKSC 23 By a majority 3:2 decision, the Supreme Court has overturned the decision of the Court of Appeal in the case of Telereal Trillium v Hewitt (Valuation Officer) [2018] EWCA Civ 26. The case...

Alexander Kuznetsov v Camden London Borough Council [2019] EWHC 805 (Ch) In an application for relief from sanctions, the Claimant tenant, Kuznetsov, persuaded the High Court that it had a real prospect of establishing at trial that a letter between...

Ury Estate Limited v BP Exploration Operating Company Limited [2019] CSOH 36 A landowner raised a court action against BP seeking compensation for their inability to develop land due to a presence of an oil pipeline.  The proposed development w...

Co-operative Group Food Ltd v A & A Shah Properties Ltd [2019] EWHC 941 (Ch) A recent case saw the court wrestle with the difficulties sometimes encountered with guarantee provisions and the way in which they are drafted. The landlord A & A ...

Blue Manchester LTD v North West Ground Rents LTD [2019] EWHC 142 (TCC) The High Court confirmed earlier this year that landlords must consider aesthetic appearance when assessing repairs as they may be obliged to reinstate original design features....

Windsor-Clive v Rees [2019] EWHC 1008 (Ch) In considering the scope of a landlord’s reserved right to enter premises let to their tenant “for all reasonable purposes”, the High Court has held that the right to do so must be...

The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, James Brokenshire, has published the Government’s response to the consultation on leasehold reform. Described as delivering on the Government’s manifesto pledge to &ld...

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Seafood Shack Ltd v Alan Darlow [2019] EWHC 1567 (Ch) A lease of restaurant premises was granted to a company that did not exist; there was no legal basis for correcting the lease, and the similarly-named company claiming rights was held to have non...

Pezaro & Anor v Bourne & Anor [2019] EWHC 1964 (Ch) The High Court has held that a right of way was not extinguished where a landowner had relied on an oral agreement made with the previous owner of the land which benefited from the right of...

Westmark (Lettings) Limited v Elizabeth Peddle and others [2017] UKUT 449 (LC) Here, the Upper Tribunal had to decide on the issue of when “relevant costs” are incurred for the purposes of Section 20(B)(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act ...

The new Electronic Communications Code (“the Code”) received royal assent on 27 April 2017, as part of the Digital Economy Act 2017 (“the Act”). The Code came into force on 28 December 2017.  

This is another important Scottish Sheriff Court case on the competency of an assignation of standard securities (secured charges).  It follows two recent conflicting cases of OneSavings Bank v Burns, where the court found in favour of the borr...

Sackville UK Property Select II (GP) No 1 Ltd & Sackville UK Property Select II Nominee (1) Ltd v Robertson Taylor Insurance Broker Ltd and (2) Integro Insurance Brokers Ltd [2018] EWHC 122 (Ch) Serving break notices to end leases can be a risky...

Modification and discharge of restrictive covenants! In the matter of an application by Paul Holden (2018) Many properties are bound by restrictive covenants, which restrict the use to which the property in question may be put.  Restrictive cov...

(1) Stephen Charles Smyth-Tyrrell (2) Beaujolois Katherine Smyth-Tyrrell –v- William Robert Bowden (2018) Recovery of possession of land by a landlord against his tenant is not always an easy business.  In this particular case, the tenant...

Tonicstar Limited v Allianz Insurance Plc [2017] EWHC 2753 (Comm) A contract of reinsurance, triggered by the 9/11 attacks, contained provisions requiring the respondent to appoint an arbitrator: "Unless the parties otherwise agree the arbitration t...

Scottish Parliament brings forward Bill to introduce new “group proceedings” procedure in Scotland The Civil Litigation (Expenses and Group Proceedings) (Scotland) Bill (the ‘Bill’) is currently making its way through the Sco...

A new approach A recent ruling by Coulson J represents a significant departure from the line of cases which paved the way for “smash and grab” adjudications. Since ISG v Seevic (2014) and Galliford Try v Estura (2015) an employer that fa...

Warborough Investments Limited v Lunar Office SARL [2018] EWCA Civ 427 The Court of Appeal has held that, contrary to the decision at first instance, the sub-clauses of a lease setting out the terms for permitting underletting should be read cumula...

Commodity Solution services Limited and Charles Henry Sands v First Scottish Searching Services Limited [2018] SC DUNE 74 In Scotland, inhibitions are a method of debt recovery designed to prevent a debtor selling or disposing of heritable property ...

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Ryan Fisher Vinyl & Carpet Showroom RA/94/2017 Thorntons plc and Clarions Solicitors Limited RA/80/2017 and RA/93/2017 The Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) has handed down two decisions recently which have highlighted the Tribunal’s pragmati...

Gateway Assets Limited v C.V Panels Limited [2018] CSOH 48 A tenant had a ten year lease with a break option after 5 years, which could be exercised by giving not less than 6 months’ written notice to the landlord. When the tenant served a bre...

The Supreme Court has handed down its judgment in the long-awaited appeal of Rock Advertising Limited v MWB Business Exchange Centres Limited [2018] UKSC 24, a case which the court describes as “exceptional” on the basis it concerns two ...

R (Principled Offsite Logistics Limited) – v - Trafford Council [2018] EWHC 1687 (Admin) In a decision which will be welcomed by corporate occupiers nationwide, the High Court has ruled that the storage model employed by Principled Offsite Log...

TRILLIUM (PRIME) PROPERTY GP LTD v ELMFIELD ROAD LTD (2018) [2018] EWCA Civ 1556 The tenant sought, on appeal, to argue that the wording of its rent review clause was ambiguous such that the calculation for its rent review could not be taken literal...

No.1 West India Quay (Residential) Ltd v East Tower Apartments Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 250 The Court of Appeal has overturned the High Court’s decision and confirmed that where two out of three of the landlord’s reasons for refusing consent ...

Beaumont Business Centres Limited v Florala Properties Limited [2018] EWHC 2112 (Ch) The High Court was not persuaded that Beaumont, the Claimant, should be precluded from continuing with its claim for an injunction to restrict works which threatene...

Palo Alto Limited, Peter Weiss and David Hedges v Alnor Estates Limited [2018] UKUT 0231 (TCC) The Upper Tribunal has approved the First-Tier Tribunal’s decision to rectify leases which a landlord, Alnor Estates, had inadvertently granted for ...

CDS (Superstores International) Limited v Place Road Properties Limited (Unreported) The County Court in Bristol has agreed to rectify the rent and rent review provisions in a lease on the basis that the agreement was reached under a mistake. The pa...

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Fouladi v Darout Ltd and others [2018] EWHC 3501 (Ch) A nuisance is caused by a person doing something on his own land, which he is lawfully entitled to do but which becomes a nuisance when the consequences of his act extend to the land of his neigh...

Deepak Abbhi v Richard John Slade (trading as Richard Slade & Co) [2019] EWCA Civ 2175 The Court of Appeal recently unanimously held that an oral promise by a son-in-law to give money to his father-in-law to pay legal fees was an indemnity and n...

Whether it is caused by a medical condition, working hours, shift patterns or personal circumstances, fatigue is a health and safety risk that can often be overlooked, but must be controlled by employers.  Many well-known major accidents such a...