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R (Greyhound Board of Great Britain Ltd) v Welsh Ministers [2026] EWHC 670 (Admin) What are the practical implications of this case? The ruling reinforces the constitutional divide between the courts and the legislature. It explains that the scheme and framework of the Government of Wales Act 2006 (GWA 2006) embody that separation of powers, and that any judicial attempt to recognise and enforce a common law obligation on Welsh Ministers to consult prior to introducing legislation in the Senedd would trespass upon that boundary. This is not a departure from established principle; case law has already upheld comparable rules for lawmakers in Scotland and at Westminster. However, this is the first express confirmation of the position for Welsh lawmakers, and the first time this dimension of the GWA 2006 has been analysed in such depth. The court examined earlier
The solution arrived through the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), a quasi‑judicial body handling mass claims, created under UN Security Council Resolution 687. By addressing environmental harm—most notably via its ‘F4’ claim class—the UNCC set a seminal benchmark shaping how international law and contemporary arbitral panels allocate financial responsibility for wartime ecological devastation. With present-day wars in areas such as Eastern Europe and the Middle East bringing dam breaches, strikes on chemical facilities, and the burning of farmland, the UNCC’s legacy endures as an essential reference point for states, global investors, and companies engaged in post‑conflict arbitration. The F4 claims: Quantifying the unquantifiable Prior to the 1990s, mechanisms in international law for war reparations overwhelmingly favoured property loss, foregone earnings, and bodily injury. The natural world was commonly treated as a mute, non-compensable victim of armed hostilities...
Understanding the farming business as a business Many farms still use long-standing structures that arose by habit, not strategy. Sole traders, informal partnerships and outdated partnership deeds are common. While once effective, such setups can cause major issues around succession, tax planning and involving the next generation. A corporate team can take a fresh, business-led view of the farm, asking: Who owns the land and other critical assets? Who manages daily operations? Who carries the risk and who enjoys the return? What is the enduring plan for succession? From this review, the team can confirm whether the current setup is fit for purpose or if an alternative — for example an updated partnership agreement, a company, a limited liability partnership, or a blended model — would better meet the family’s aims. Tax efficiency through joined-up advice Tax sits at the centre of most
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In this issue: Residential tenancies Disputes and remedies Electronic communications Repairing obligations and dilapidations Additional Property Disputes updates Daily and weekly news alerts Dates for your diary New and updated content Residential tenancies Upper Tribunal rules on the interpretation of 'person managing' an HMO under the Housing Act 2004 ( Next Location Company Ltd v Haringey London Borough Council) In Next Location Company Ltd v Haringey London Borough Council [2025] UKUT 279 ( LC), the Upper Tribunal ( Lands Chamber) upheld the appellant’s challenge to a First-tier Tribunal decision that had affirmed a financial penalty for managing a house in multiple occupation that required a licence. The UT found the FTT failed to sufficiently explain its conclusion that the appellant was the “person managing” for the purposes of section 263 of the Housing Act 2004, and did not adequately justify the level of the penalty. The FTT’s findings were set aside, and the appeal before the FTT was...
In this issue: Enfranchisement and right to manage Residential tenancies Repairing obligations and dilapidations Easements and covenants Leases and licences Disputes and remedies Service charges Enforcing security and property insolvency Additional Property Disputes updates Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Latest Q& As Enfranchisement and right to manage Court of Appeal on right to manage, strict procedural compliance and equitable tenancies ( Avon Freeholds Limited v Cresta Court E RTM Company Ltd) The Court of Appeal determined that an RTM company’s claim notice was ineffective because the company had not satisfied section 78(1) of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. In particular, it failed to deliver a notice inviting participation to an equitable long lessee before issuing the claim notice. The Court affirmed the Upper...
( Sayers and another v Dixon and another [2025] EWHC 1886 ( Ch)) What are the practical implications of this case? Mr Dixon created the Do Ts without any particular creditor in view. It was only six years later that HMRC issued a bankruptcy petition seeking £627,302 for unpaid self-assessment tax, penalties and surcharges; at the time of execution, HMRC was not within his contemplation. Following his bankruptcy in August 2017, he attempted to rely on the Do Ts, asserting that he had shed all assets and income; that everything received since September 2010 was his wife’s or sums loaned by her; and that he had no means. The long interval between the Do Ts and his bankruptcy did not assist him. The judgment demonstrates that IA 1986, s 423 can, in principle, be used to attack transactions concluded many years earlier if the...
Avon Freeholds Ltd v Cresta Court E RTM Company Ltd [2025] EWCA Civ 1016 What are the practical implications of this case? The Court addressed what it termed two ‘interesting questions’ ([16]) with practical effects reaching beyond the RTM regime. Question 1: Does a tenant holding a newly granted long lease, pending registration at HM Land Registry and thus valid in equity but not at law, qualify as a ‘qualifying tenant’ under CLRA 2002, s 75? Question 2: If she is a ‘qualifying tenant’, did the omission to serve her with a participation notice render invalid the claim notice later issued by the Respondent RTM company? The Court’s answer to both questions was an unequivocal ‘yes’. Question 1 It is widely recognised that HM Land Registry is experiencing substantial delays. This is not merely exasperating but also carries significant legal consequence. Where a...
In this issue: Residential tenancies Repairing obligations and dilapidations Enforcing security and property insolvency Disputes and remedies Key developments and horizon scanning Additional Property Disputes updates Lex Talk® Property Disputes: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts Dates for your diary Residential tenancies An end to unmeritorious tenancy deposit claims ( Lowe v The Governors of Sutton’s Hospital in Charterhouse) The Court of Appeal in Lowe v The Governors of Sutton’s Hospital in Charterhouse [2025] EWCA Civ 857 upheld the refusal of a substantial claim under the tenancy deposit regime. The central question was whether a prescribed information certificate that, first, contained a mistake and, second, lacked a signature nevertheless complied with section 213 of the Housing Act 2004 ( HA 2004) and the related 2007 Order. Applying the Mannai principle and adopting a purposive reading of the statutory scheme, the court held that the certificate was sufficient to meet those...
What are the practical implications of this case? This decision carries real weight for practitioners as it narrows HMO licensing offences and the levying of civil penalties to genuinely ‘ongoing’ management activities, rather than brief, ‘snapshot’ involvement by agents at the outset of a let. It is expected to bolster ‘let-only’ instructions for finding HMO occupants and putting tenancies in place. Local authority enforcement teams should treat this as essential reading and revisit any live matters targeting letting agents under comparable arrangements, particularly where the likelihood of achieving a conviction could be materially reduced... What was the background? The appellant was a director of Discover Residential Ltd (the Company), a letting agency based in Essex. On 20 April 2023, the respondent local housing authority issued him with a financial penalty of £7,064.32 after the Company—acting on a ‘let-only’ basis—had arranged the letting of rooms in a...
Lowe v The Governors of Sutton’s Hospital In Charterhouse [2025] EWCA Civ 857 What are the practical implications of this case? The tenancy deposit regime is not elegantly drafted and has prompted a wave of technical litigation. This judgment offers useful clarity on how courts approach imperfect landlord compliance: A prescribed information certificate containing an inaccuracy should be interpreted as any statutory notice. If a reasonable recipient would grasp the correct details from it, the legislative requirements are treated as satisfied. The absence of a signature on the prescribed information certificate did not invalidate it. Here, the certificate was sent with a covering letter signed by the landlord’s agent; read together, the latter authenticated the former for the purposes of the statutory scheme. What was the background? In January 2010, C entered a contractual fixed-term tenancy of a residential flat within the...
Building safety; statutory construction; retrospectivity; exercise of discretion by FTT; meaning of ‘just and equitable’ ( Triathlon Homes LLP v Stratford Village Development Partnership & Others) Triathlon Homes LLP v Stratford Village Development Partnership and other companies ( Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, intervening) [2025] EWCA Civ 846 What are the practical implications of this case? This is the first appellate ruling on RCOs and confirms the wide scope of matters the tribunal may weigh when using its discretion to make an order. There are several practical lessons for practitioners. In particular: first, the exposure to unknown and potential no‑fault‑based liabilities. It is now clear RCOs can be made for defects originating as long ago as 1992. A change in beneficial ownership of a developer, or of a company associated with a developer, will not absolve those companies from...
In this issue Key developments and horizon scanning Residential tenancies Electronic communications Forfeiture Trespass and adverse possession Disputes and remedies Repairing obligations and dilapidations Neighbour and party wall disputes Easements and covenants Enfranchisement and right to manage Additional Property Disputes updates Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Latest Q& A Key developments and horizon scanning BPF blog on the proposed ban of Upwards Only Rent Reviews The British Property Federation ( BPF) has issued a Spotlight Series blog featuring insights from its Head of Communications, Dominic Curran, following the government’s 10 July 2025 announcement proposing a prohibition on Upwards Only Rent Reviews ( UORRs). The article sets out what UORRs are and why they exist, assesses the government’s...
In this issue: Disputes and remedies Civil Procedure ( Amendment No 2) Rules 2025 Trespass and adverse possession Repairing obligations and dilapidations Residential tenancies Service charges Additional Property Disputes updates Daily and weekly news alerts Dates for your diary Trackers Latest Q& A Disputes and remedies Justice Committee releases report on the operation of the County Court The House of Commons Justice Committee has issued a report evaluating the condition of the County Court in England and Wales. It concludes the court is dysfunctional, labelling it the justice system’s overlooked ‘ Cinderella service’. The report records that average waits for small claims now exceed 50 weeks, a pattern that predates the coronavirus ( COVID-19) pandemic and has been intensified by higher demand, staffing difficulties, and an increase in litigants in person. These delays arise from...
Access the minutes here: Online Procedure Rule Committee Minutes—9 June 2025. Welcome, apologies and introductory remarks (item 1) Approval was given to the minutes from the 12 May 2025 meeting (see News Analysis: Minutes of the OPR Committee meeting—12 May 2025). Nothing particular was recorded against the action log. OPRC event update (item 2) It was noted that arrangements for the OPRC event on 16 July 2025 are advancing well. The Civil Procedure Rule Committee ( CPRC) session is planned for the morning, with the OPRC session taking place later in the day. Delegates may attend both. The CPRC session will feature a discussion on alternative dispute resolution, to be led by Lady Justice Aplin. Consultation on the digital justice system (item 3) The OPRC resolved to merge the papers for the consultation on the digital justice system into a single document......
In this issue Easements and covenants Key developments and horizon scanning Enforcing security and property insolvency Trespass and adverse possession Disputes and remedies Residential tenancies Repairing obligations and dilapidations Rent and rates Property Disputes in Scotland Additional Property Disputes updates Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Latest Q& As Easements and covenants Interference with rights to light—claimants receive a substantial award based on negotiating damages ( Cooper v Ludgate House) It was no surprise that the court refused an injunction in Cooper v Ludgate House [2025] EWHC 1724 ( Ch). The loss of light was not at the severe end of the spectrum, and the harm an injunction would inflict on the developer—and on the public interest, which both parties agreed was...
Cooper v Ludgate House Ltd [2025] EWHC 1724 ( Ch) What are the practical implications of this case? This judgment is rich in detail and offers much of relevance for practitioners. Key takeaways include: The Waldram approach to evaluating loss of light remains the benchmark for rights of light surveyors. However, additional techniques already common in the planning sphere to inform design may increasingly be used alongside Waldram to aid the court, particularly where issues are finely balanced. Any such techniques must deliver concrete, quantifiable outcomes, rather than depend on subjective, impressionistic readings of graphical outputs. Where a claimant pursues an injunction compelling demolition or alteration of a building said to interfere with rights to light and that building is tenanted, careful thought should be given to joining those tenants who are likely to be affected. Although this may...
Note: the CPRC no longer distributes the underlying papers with the minutes, and consequently no documents explaining the matters discussed are supplied alongside this News Analysis. A copy of the minutes can be found here: Minutes of the Civil Procedure Rule Committee. Welcome, apologies and introductory remarks (item 1) The minutes of the 9 May 2025 meeting were approved (for more detail, see News Analysis: Minutes of the CPR Committee meeting—9 May 2025). From the action log, the following items were recorded: Forms and standard orders—various strands of work remain in progress, and a new working group will be created. The Chair and Secretariat will finalise the finer details outside the committee. Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024—drafting was agreed under item 3 at the Minutes of the CPR Committee meeting—9 May 2025, and the finalised draft is now...
Mitterhuber v Hernandez and another [2025] UKUT 194 ( LC) What are the practical implications of this case? This decision confirms a practical, evidence‑based approach to deciding whether an occupier treats a property as their sole or principal home, and recognises that this point may not be addressed head‑on, particularly where the occupier is neither the applicant nor a witness. While there will be occasions when the FTT must draw inferences, the appeal shows that there was sufficient material to satisfy the requirements of section 254(2) of the Housing Act 2004, with particular weight on subsection (c): the premises comprise one or more units of living accommodation that are not a self‑contained flat or flats the living accommodation is used by persons who do not constitute a single household (see HA 2004, s 258) the living...
Bunyan ( Valuation Officer) v Fridays Ltd [2025] EWCA Civ 666 What are the practical implications of this case? Although Fridays succeeded in the Court of Appeal, the court rejected their broader submission. To qualify as an ‘agricultural building’ (and thereby benefit from the exemption) a structure must satisfy an occupation test—that it is occupied with agricultural land—and a use test—that it is employed solely for agricultural operations on that land or on other agricultural land. The Upper Tribunal concluded that the 2003 revision to the definition displaced earlier authority which had required the building and land to comprise a single agricultural unit. It held instead that the correct approach was that the building and land needed to be held as part of the same enterprise and be geographically proximate, if not adjoining. The Court of Appeal found that analysis to be mistaken and...
In this issue: Forfeiture Repairing obligations and dilapidations Enforcing security and property insolvency Easements and covenants Residential tenancies Neighbour and party wall disputes Additional Property Disputes updates Lex Talk®Property Disputes: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Latest Q& A Forfeiture Landlord wrongly pursued forfeiture in light of prior settlement ( White v 29 Buckland Crescent Management Company Ltd) In White v 29 Buckland Crescent Management Company Ltd [2025] EWCA Civ 814, the Court of Appeal ( Civil Division) allowed the appeal, examining whether the landlord, 29 Buckland Crescent Management Co Ltd, could forfeit Mr White’s lease for an alleged breach of a repairing covenant. The court determined that the terms of an earlier settlement agreement prevented the company from seeking forfeiture for lease...
In this issue: Trespass and adverse possession Enforcing security and property insolvency Lease covenants and obligations Residential tenancies Neighbour and party wall disputes Repairing obligations and dilapidations Service charges Key developments and horizon scanning Easements and covenants Disputes and remedies Additional Property Disputes updates Lex Talk® Property Disputes: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Latest Q& A Trespass and adverse possession The court identified strong grounds to maintain injunctions aimed at curbing hazardous car-cruising against persons unknown ( Birmingham CC and Wolverhampton CC v Persons Unknown). In upholding multiple local authority injunctions against named individuals and persons unknown for car-cruising and connected nuisance, Mr Justice Ritchie set out the correct approach to the continuation of such...
A copy of the minutes can be accessed here, for reference: Online Procedure Rule Committee minutes of meeting 12 May 2025. Welcome, apologies and introductory remarks (item 1) Agreement was reached on the minutes from the 14 April 2025 meeting, as presented (see News Analysis: Minutes of the OPR Committee meeting—14 April 2025). The action log recorded continued coordination and preparation for forthcoming consultations and events. Statutory instrument (item 2) Confirmation was given that the Online Procedure Rules ( Specified Proceedings) Regulations 2025, SI 2025/ 536, took effect on 30 April 2025, with thanks recorded for the OPRC’s assistance throughout. Attention then moved to the forthcoming Statutory Instrument ( SI), targeting advice to ministers by September to achieve agreement on which categories of proceedings should be covered in due course. Consultation planning and scheduling (item 3) The OPRC considered the approach to consultation. Particular stress was placed on...
London Trocadero (2015) LLP v Picturehouse Cinemas Ltd and other companies [2025] EWHC 1247 ( Ch) What are the practical implications of this case? In this matter, expert testimony indicated that landlord commissions of up to 37.5% were not unusual when the lease was entered into, and that some tenants may have been overcharged insurance rent by as much as 60%. This suggests that negotiating higher commissions and charging them back has been commonplace. Practitioners must ensure both landlord and tenant clients—particularly anyone within, or dealing with, the Criterion Group—are notified of this ruling without delay. They should assist clients to investigate quickly whether commissions have been received and, if so, what steps to take, keeping in view: any limitation issues; and the prospect that the Trocadero decision could be appealed. The precise lease terms require thorough review, as outcomes may depend on the exact wording. Tenants ought to ask...
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When evaluating a general damages claim, the practitioner ought initially to refer to the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG)...
This Practice Note This Practice Note reviews mechanisms used in settling litigation. A Tomlin order consists of a consent order paired with a schedule. It operates to stay proceedings on terms that have been agreed. The provisions contained in the schedule may remain confidential. This Practice Note describes the scope of confidentiality attaching to the schedule and sets out how it differs from a standard consent order. Sample wording for a Tomlin order is included, alongside links to precedents, as well as guidance on court approval. It also addresses varying, setting aside and enforcing a Tomlin order, including the considerations the court will take into account when handling applications for each. Further guidance is provided on interpreting and applying the relevant provisions of the CPR; however, some courts and divisions impose very specific requirements for both drafting and approval, and for approaching the schedule and confidentiality issues. Accordingly, you must consider the particular rules and court guide provisions in the forum where your claim is proceeding when drawing up the Tomlin order...
Date [ date ] Parties [ name of Landlord ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Landlord) [ name of Tenant ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Tenant) [ [ name of Guarantor ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Guarantor) ] [ [ name of Mortgagee ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Mortgagee) ] Definitions Within this Deed, the terms below shall be interpreted as follows: [ Annual Rent • the annual sum reserved under the Lease; ] [ Insurance Rent • the Tenant’s share of the Landlord’s costs of insuring the Property (as set out in the Lease); ] Lease • the lease of the Property dated [ date ], entered into between (1) [ the Landlord OR [ name ...
I, [ name ], of [ address ], solemnly and sincerely state that: [ Matters to be verified, set out in numbered paragraphs ] I make this solemn statement in good conscience, believing it to be true, and pursuant to the provisions of the Statutory Declarations Act 1835. DECLARED at [ details ] this [ day ] day of [ month and year ] Before me ................................................................................ [ signature of the person before whom the declaration is made ] A [ commissioner for oaths OR [ solicitor OR [ insert other qualification ] ] authorised to administer oaths ]...
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