Farakh Rashid v Teyub Nasrullah (Acting as Executor of the Estate of the late Mohammed Rashid) [2018] EWCA Civ 2685 The Court of Appeal has decided that a registered owner of land can also be in adverse possession of the same land. The late Mohammed...

Canary Wharf (BP4) T1 Ltd v European Medicines Agency   The impact of Brexit upon property disputes has not been wide ranging thus far.  However, a case which is set for trial in the early part of 2019 may alter that position and potential...

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...

(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...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

Freehold Properties 250 Ltd v Field [2020] EWHC 792 (Ch) The tenants of terraced and semi-detached houses on an estate, demised under a long lease that excluded certain structural parts had no right to acquire the freehold title as they were not "a ...

Housing and Planning Act 2016 Developers often rely on local planning authorities’ powers under section 237 Town and Country Planning Act 1990, to override easements and other rights over land which has been acquired for or appropriated to  pla...

Hong Kong Courts are closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the backlog of litigation continues to grow. Does arbitration have the answers? The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the closure of the Hong Kong courts. They closed after the Chinese ...

Youssefi v Mussellwhite [2014] EWCA Civ 885 Horne & Meredith Properties Ltd v Cox [2014] All ER (D) 194 These two cases concern opposition to lease renewals on the grounds of the tenant’s breach of covenant (“grounds (a), (b) and (c)...

Charalambous and another v Ng and another [2014] EWCA Civ 1604 The courts continue to produce surprising decisions in relation to the tenancy deposit scheme introduced by the Housing Act 2004, applying it in certain respects to tenancies granted bef...

(1) Discovery (Northampton) Limited (2) Discovery (Nuneaton) Limited (3) Southampton Estates Limited (4) Discovery (Torquay) Limited (5) Discovery (Folkestone) Limited (6) Discovery (Harrogate) Limited v Debenhams Retail Limited (2) James Robert Tuc...