News & Publications: Real Estate Litigation
The Winter Truce
November 18th, 2020
Why has this come into effect? There has been recent talk of a “Winter Truce”, preventing residential tenants from being evicted during the Christmas Period. Accordingly, the Secretary of State has exercised powers conferred by prior legislation to make these regulations (exercised by statutory instrument[1]). [1] Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, s.45P, 2. […]
Can an email signature bind you to the sale of property?
January 30th, 2020
Commentary on the decision in Neocleous & another v Rees [2019] EWHC 2462 (Ch) Introduction Section 2 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 (‘the Act’), provides (amongst other things) that a contract for the sale of land can only be made in writing, containing all of the agreed terms in a single […]
Wigmore Homes (UK) Limited v Sembley Works Residents Association Limited [2018] UKUT 252 (LC)
January 7th, 2019
The Appellant is the owner of multiple flats in a converted office and factory. The building, which now comprises of 33 residential flats has a history of disrepair and service charge arrears. The Respondent, which is owned and managed by some of the tenants of the block, took over the management in 2012. In 2015, […]
Good news for landlords
September 12th, 2015
A comment on the decision in Chaplair v Kumrai [2015] EWCA Civ 798. In the last article that was posted on the subject of collection of service charge arrears, it was suggested that it is becoming somewhat difficult to recover the costs of proceedings instigated to recover service charge arrears when a claim is allocated […]
Collection of Service Charge arrears
September 5th, 2015
Recovery of costs in the Small Claims Court. A very popular method of collecting service charge arrears is for a landlord to issue a claim in the County Court for damages. On many occasions, the leaseholder will not respond and so a judgment in default is obtained. This can be relied on as a determination […]
Tenancy Deposit Scheme: what are the penalties for the landlord if things go wrong?
June 8th, 2015
Okadigbo v Chan (2014) EWHC 4729 (QB) It is common for the landlord to take a dilapidations deposit at the start of a tenancy as a safeguard in case the tenant causes any damage to the property. The Housing Act 2004 introduced regulations which have, since April 2007, required deposits to be placed in approved […]