CN & Anor v Poole Borough Council (2017) EWCA Civ 2185 What, if any, duty is owed by a local authority to children to protect them from abuse and harassment by neighbours? This court of appeal decision suggests none in negligence. CN and GN lived with...
Works and quiet enjoyment
Timothy Taylor Ltd v Mayfair House Corporation & Anor [2016] EWHC 1075 (Ch) I'm very late with this one - been in the 'to do' pile for ages. In mitigation, it is a commercial property case, but has interesting elements on the way in which building works...
Almshouses, tenancies and Article 14
This post is my Christmas gift to land law students everywhere in the UK. It is a discussion of the very important Court of Appeal decision in Watts v Stewart [2016] EWCA Civ 1247, which concerned whether charitable providers of accommodation (in this case,...
Money down the drain
Court v Van Dijk & Anor [2016] EWCA Civ 483 Nuisance cases are tricky. There is a lot to establish for causation, for liability and for loss. This case is perhaps a cautionary tale about the need to be constantly alert to changes in the facts and expert...
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Cocking & Anor v Eacott & Anor [2016] EWCA Civ 140 Neighbour nuisance. These are often difficult and indeed expensive cases. And always there are those affected who believe that a landlord is liable for their tenant's nuisance (which they just...
Disrepair miscellany: Good, bad and ugly.
Perhaps illustrating the need for the Court of Appeal to deliver the judgment in Moorjani (see preceding post), the December 2015 issue of Legal Action has Beatrice Prevatt's excellent annual 'housing repairs update'. We have covered many of the cases...
I saw a mouse. Where?…
A semi-guest note on a pest infestation nuisance county court case involving leaseholders. Interesting on both liability and quantum. Ojo & Ojo v London Borough of Hackney. County Court at Clerkenwell & Shoreditch 4 November 2015 The Claimants were...
Human Rights Update
Zammit & Attard Cassar v Malta [2015] ECHR 751 This is the latest in the sequence of cases dealing with rent controls and breaches of A1P1 (previous note here). The property in this instance was let under a commercial lease and in 2002, the applicants...
Nuisance and reasonable steps
As an illustration of the perils of a claim in nuisance, here is Yianni v Shakeshaft [2014] EWCA Civ 1639 [Not on Bailii. We've seen a transcript] Ms Y is the leaseholder of a flat below that of Mrs & Mr Shakeshaft, who had a tenant in theirs. There had...
Human Rights Round-Up Part 2
Lemo and others v Croatia [2014] ECHR 755 (10/7/2014) Both the facts and the outcome in this case are highly reminiscent of Brezec v Croatia (see our note here). The applicants had occupied flats under protected tenancies from the 1970s until their eviction...
Eviction: “Sexual, athletic and squeaking noises”
In a case that recalls the 'unnatural' noises emanating from Concord, Tyne and Wear, a German Court was faced with a tricky decision in a claim for possession. The ground given was that the tenant had installed a 'very old' sex swing in 2012. And, despite a...
Extremely loud and incredibly close
This is about loud and disturbing noises. I was going to write up Coventry & Ors v Lawrence & Anor [2014] UKSC 13 when it came out in February, given that it made some significant changes to common law nuisance claims. But it was 249 paragraphs and...