
Introduction
Welcome to the March 2021 edition of the Property Newsletter from Hardwicke. Be gone, February! Spring has sprung and the red pen has been worn out circling 21st June in the diary.
This month James Hall considers the decision in Large v Hart [2021] EWCA Civ 24, which provides qualification to or a claimant friendly explanation of or (possibly) a way around (!) the famous and restrictive doctrine in South Australia Asset Management Corp v York Montague Ltd [1997] AC 191.
We also have a podcast from John de Waal KC, Faisel Sadiq and Katrina Mather as they give an overview of the top ten property cases from 2020, and Jack Dillon spins the wheel of questions for us.
For all things Covid-19 related, Hardwicke’s Covid-19 resources related hub can be found here.
The next newsletter will be shortly after Easter, around the start of April. From all the team at Hardwicke we continue to wish you and your family all the best at this difficult time.
Carl Brewin – Editor
Activity Report – What we have been up to and what we'll be getting up to over the coming month
Laura Tweedy has been busy building snow people and getting ridiculously muddy in Epping Forest. She also has a lot of service charge and injunction work. Perhaps a bit ambitiously, she has booked a trip to Japan in July for the Olympics… Twelve-hour flight with two pre-schoolers anyone?
Jamal Demachkie had an enjoyable first week of DDJ sittings and is now back to the day job! He’s looking forward to a forfeiture trial coming up later this month, and some contentious enforcement proceedings following a successful trial last month.
Cameron Stocks has spent a large portion of the last month dealing with all things trusts of land, from mediations of disputes following the death of a co-owner to pre-trial settlement hearings relating to life interest trusts. When not attempting to untangle trusts, Cameron successfully resisted a High Court appeal concerning alleged misrepresentations by a national bank as to the terms of a mortgage.
John de Waal KC is acting for the BMA in litigation with NHS Property Services Ltd in five test cases concerning service charges charged to GPs surgeries.
Andrew Skelly has been advising a local authority as to the implications of its acquiring a Manor House – a listed building, in need of TLC. Otherwise, February has been a month of boundary disputes and adverse possession, culminating in a CVP trial ‘in’ Northampton.
Monty Palfrey has had a busy month, almost back to normal with hearings in possession claims, pub claims, a three-day boundary dispute, service charges and RTMs in the FTT and advising generally on all manner of neighbour disputes.
Katrina Mather has been acting for the BMA with John de Waal KC on the test case against NHS Property Services concerning unilateral imposition of service charges on GPs. She has also successfully resisted a High Court appeal in a business tenancy dispute. For some added drama, she had her first in person possession hearing with the new Covid rules, which was made more interesting by the tenant cursing the Judge during judgment.
Daniel Gatty has been involved in remote hearings in a dispute between developers over an option and an overage agreement, in two sets of landlord and tenant proceedings and in a conveyancing negligence claim. When not ‘in court’, he has been busy working on matters as diverse as a prescriptive easement of airflow to an air-conditioning vent and burial rights in a privately owned cemetery.
Brie Stevens-Hoare KC seems to be surrounded by people terminating contracts and exiting property transactions – curiously both buyers and sellers. That’s probably why she was so happy to do a talk on that very subject with Priya last week. Brie reports a good diet of boundary and easement disputes which goes very nicely with her recent appointment as a Mediator on the RICS Boundary Mediation Panel.
Lina Mattson has been arguing about what losses a freeholder suffers when a long-leaseholder sublets in breach of the lease on booking.com and when a landlord can refuse to grant a new lease due to disrepair, following the issue of unopposed lease renewal proceedings.
Events
#HardwickeBrews
The Hardwicke Team is continuing its successful #HarwickeBrew series on Zoom, so that we can all have an informal chat and we can let you in to our team’s thoughts about current issues and the practical challenges practitioners and their clients are facing. Thank you to all those who attended our Brews so far. Here’s what we have coming up in March:
31st March: #HardwickeBrew – Commonly misunderstood issues regarding rights of way
Hardwicke Seminar Programme
Our webinar on Rent Repayment Orders has been rescheduled for 5th May 2021, where Faisel Sadiq, Laura Tweedy, Clare Anslow and Byroni Kleopa will be guiding you through recent developments.
J2J Property Seminar Programme: Laying the Foundations
All the seminars in our J2J property seminar programme for 2021 are aimed at junior property practitioners wishing to build up their knowledge of some of the issues that come up regularly in practice or more senior practitioners looking for a refresher. The full programme is set out below. All these seminars will take place online via Zoom at 10am and will last for 30 – 45 minutes. If you feel that all/any of theses sessions would be useful, please do feel free to mention it to colleagues.
13 April 2021: How to manage TOLATA claims
11 May 2021: Probate and private client for property lawyers – an essential guide
Anyone wishing to attend any of the events should please email events@gatehouselaw.co.uk to be added to the mailing list. We will be sending out formal invitations to each event before each session.
Large v Hart: Surveyors’ negligence in property transactions and the path through (or around?) SAAMCo
On 15th January 2021, the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment on the appeal in Large v Hart [2021] EWCA Civ 24 (dismissing the appeal and upholding the decision of Roger Ter Haar QC sitting as a High Court Judge in Hart v Large [2020] EWHC 985 (TCC)). The Court was at pains to emphasize the unusual nature of the case but, as explained below, this decision is one of several recent cases which provides (depending on your point of view), qualifications to/a claimant-friendly explanation of/a way around the famous and restrictive doctrine in South Australia Asset Management Corp v York Montague Ltd [1997] AC 191 (“SAAMCo”), a doctrine more recently expounded in BPE v Hughes Holland ([2017] UKSC 21 (aka Gabriel v Little).
Click here to read the article by James Hall.
Did you see? You may have missed...
Criterion Buildings Ltd v Mckinsey and Co Inc (United Kingdom) [2021] EWHC 314 (Ch), 17 February 2021
Following an unsuccessful challenge by a commercial tenant of service charges demanded by the landlord, the landlord claimed costs of the action on an indemnity basis. The tenant denied both that there was any contract to pay indemnity costs, and that there was any other basis upon which indemnity costs could be ordered.
Click here to read the case summary by Lina Mattsson.
Podcast: Hardwicke’s review of the ten leading property cases from 2020
John de Waal KC, Faisel Sadiq and Katrina Mather review the ten leading property cases from 2020 in their latest podcast. Click here to listen.
Please click here to watch the video recording.
“Hardwicke Unrobed” - Get to know us better
Each month, a member of our property team has to spin ‘the Wheel of Questions’ and answer the first three questions that come up. This month, Jack Dillon tried his luck with the wheel.
Q: What are you most afraid of?
A: Random question generators looking for pithy responses to impossibly deep questions.
Q: What are you reading currently?
A: The Wolf and the Watchman – a grim Swedish crime drama set in 1793 Stockholm.
Q: What’s the first concert you attended?
A: Bruce Springsteen. The Boss is still the Boss.
Want to try for yourself?
Click on the wheel below!
Contact Us
If you would like to discuss any of the topics in this newsletter, please contact a member of our Practice Management Team:
James Duncan-Hartill, Senior Practice Manager
Patrick Sarson, Practice Manager
To find out more about our Property Team and their work, visit the property page on our website. To view a copy of our privacy statement, please click here.
This edition of the property newsletter was edited by Carl Brewin. Comments or queries about this newsletter? Please get in touch with him!
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