We provide a wide range of legal services to individuals through our specialist teams of solicitors across our offices.
We provide a wide range of legal services to individuals through our specialist teams of solicitors across our offices.
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We provide a wide range of legal services to businesses through our specialist teams of solicitors across our offices.
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An easement is a right exercised over another person’s property for the benefit of another.
A non-exhaustive list of easements include:
A restrictive covenant is an enforceable clause that limits how an owner or tenant of a property can use the property.
A non-exhaustive list of restrictive covenants include:
There are lots of different routes: instructing Lawyers, mediation, going to Court. However, the most important route is having amicable conversations with your neighbours – this will aid in future negotiations and settlements/disputes. Taking advice from a Lawyer early is critical.
A party wall is a wall which usually separates buildings belonging to different owners, but they could also include garden walls built on a boundary, known as party fence walls. Such walls are governed by the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 (“the Act”).
The Act also covers excavations close to a neighbour’s property.
Party wall agreements are usually needed for building works carried out to party walls that involve, for example, loft conversions, underpinning, making a party wall thicker or taller, and digging of new foundations. Minor works on the party wall such as plastering, electrical work or drilling of internal walls to fit kitchen units or shelving etc. do not usually require a party wall agreement.
Adverse possession (also known as a form of “squatters rights”) is the process where someone occupies and makes use of land for which they are not the legal owner of, and they occupy and use the land without the consent of actual legal owner. Such an occupation can give rise to possible ownership claims and the occupier can ultimately be granted legal ownership of the land if they apply to the Land Registry with sufficient evidence to satisfy the Land Registry requirements.
An AST is a type of rental agreement between a landlord and a tenant, and it is the most common form of rental tenancy. It is a legally binding agreement setting out the tenant’s right to occupy the property. Therefore, the tenant does not own the property. Most new tenancies are automatically this type.
A tenancy can be an AST if all the following apply:
There are three main types of misrepresentation under English law:
Leases are what is known as a “diminishing asset”. This is because when you buy a lease, it has a set number of years left to run and as time goes by, this decreases. Once a lease has less than 80 years left to run, it will cause difficulties when you come to re-mortgage the property, sell the property, and can dramatically increase the cost of a lease extension.
This is the route whereby the lease is extended by a way of an informal agreement with the landlord/freeholder. The landlord is able to request any premium, ground rent and terms through this route. There are no fixed timetables and notices that need to be served and matters are subject to the parties’ negotiation.
Over the course of time as the term of the lease reduces, so does the value of the Leasehold property. Furthermore, as the term of the lease gets shorter, the premium payable for the extension increases. Therefore, a lease is often described as a depreciating asset.
The Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (“LRHUDA”) provides leaseholders with the right to extend their lease; subject to certain qualifying criteria being met. In brief, the LRHUDA provides the leaseholder with a right to extend the lease term by a further 90 years and extinguishes the ground rent.
This is known as a statutory lease extension, which is an alternative to the voluntary lease extension route, whereby you would serve a Section 42 Notice on the landlord to extend the lease.
However, in order to proceed down this route you have to be a “qualifying tenant” which means that to be a qualifying leaseholder you must have owned a long lease for the past two years. With the Statutory route, certain notices and timetables must be adhered to in order to guarantee the extension of term by a further 90 years and extinguishing the ground rent.
A boundary is a theoretical line dividing two properties. It may be a wall, hedge, fence or there may actually be no physical divider. These can normally be found on title deeds or other conveyancing documents. However, the boundary of a registered estate as shown in Land Registry’s Official Copy of Title Plans are a ‘general boundary’ unless shown specifically as a ‘determined boundary’. A general boundary does not define the exact line of the boundary and the purpose of such Title Plans is to indicate the general position of boundaries to the property owners.
A Determined Boundary is absolutely definitive as to the location of the legal boundary.
A boundary agreement is where two or more sets of owners may come to an agreement about the boundary between their properties. The agreement can deal with the position of the legal boundary, or the maintenance of a boundary feature (such as a hedge), or both. A boundary agreement can also involve the conscious transfer of land which would have to be registered at the Land Registry.
Collective Enfranchisement is where tenants act together to require the landlord to sell them the freehold of the building under the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993.
A right to light is the ability to enjoy the natural light that passes over land belonging to another, such as a neighbouring property, through the windows, sky lights and glass roofs in or on a property – often referred to as apertures.
For help and advice, talk to a member of our team. They can advise on the best options in your matter.
