September 2015 #334 – Law Journals

Business Rates: Geography, function and objective necessity

Bryan Johnston and Alexa Phoenix consider a new approach to domestic rates following a recent Supreme Court decision ‘Ratepayers with two or more floors in a single building will likely be liable for more business rates than if the various demises had been treated as a single hereditament.’In Woolway v Mazars [2015], the Supreme Court …

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Residential Service Charge Consultation: Good news for landlords

Assad Maqbool and Douglas Rhodes analyse an important Upper Tribunal case, which settled longstanding uncertainty over how to consult with leaseholders when procuring works under framework agreements ‘In effect, the Upper Tribunal considered that the application was premature as they did not know what precise works or costs they were being asked to determine.’ On …

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Comment: Less abstraction and more clarity

Mark Pawlowski questions the usefulness of legal fictions in leasehold law ‘What is clear is that the conduct of the reasonable man is not established by the evidence of witnesses, but by the application of an impersonal legal standard by the court.’ A recurring concern among legal practitioners is the fear of uncertainty in our …

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Planning And Environment Update: Environmental constraints considered

Kara Bruce investigates how ecological and environmental questions have impacted on development in recent cases ‘If a proposed development, within or near a site of special scientific interest (SSSI), is authorised, the developer will usually need to provide some form of biodiversity offsetting to compensate for the damage caused.’ Ecological and environmental considerations continue to …

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Co-Ownership: A right to buy

Richard Eaton and Laura Tanguay examine some welcome clarification from the Court of Appeal on balancing the competing interests of co-owners of property under a trust of land ‘The need to establish the true market value by an open-market sale would normally outweigh the… wish for a remaining co-owner to be given a right of …

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Construction Focus: Challenging perceptions

John Starr highlights two cases which have reconsidered adjudication and the role of the court ‘The question that the court had to decide in Khurana was whether the adjudicator’s decision was only temporarily binding, in the usual way, or whether the agreement reached between the parties in correspondence meant that it was finally binding and …

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Landlord And Tenant Basics: Lease expiry

Penelope-Jane Gibbs discusses the important procedural requirements for tenants of commercial premises to consider before the expiry of their lease ‘If there are no provisions in the tenancy as to how rent should be apportioned at the expiry of the term and a tenant serves a notice to quit, to end part way through a …

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