News and Articles

In Roundstone Nurseries Limited v Stephenson Holdings Limited, the Court considered whether it had jurisdiction to award costs in relation to a mediation that had failed.

At their recent annual conference, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Dilapidations Forum delegates soundly rejected any suggestion that the PLA Protocol should be scrapped. Inevitably though there are calls for the detail of the document to be revised (dilapidations surveyors are nothing if not persistent when it comes to finding disagreement!).

The banking of a tenant’s cheque will not always lead to a landlord losing its right to forfeit a lease.

With the surge in mortgage repossessions, and a large buy-to-let market, it is timely to revisit the issue of the priority (or otherwise) of tenants in relation to mortgagees seeking possession.

When a contract for the sale of property falls through, the normal expectation is that where the fault lies with the buyer, the deposit paid on exchange of contracts will be forfeited. However, the Court is given a wide discretion to order the return of the deposit to the buyer. The precise extent of that discretion has been tested very recently in a judgment of the High Court (Midill (97PL) Limited v Park Lane Estates Limited & Anor [2008] EWHC 18 (Ch).

Dartmouth Court Blackheath Limited v Berisworth Limited [2008] EWHC (Ch) 350

A recent case led me to revisit the question whether a bank can be fixed with the effect of undue influence exercised by a husband over his wife (or wife over husband, but the former is more common) leading her to take on a joint liability to the bank with the husband.

Agreements between friends should be recorded in writing to ensure they are enforceable.

A flurry of cases in recent months has led some commentators to question whether the courts are moving away from the presumption of reality in construing rent review clauses. Is that in fact the case, or are reports of its demise greatly exaggerated?

Where completion of a sale contract was dependent on a planning agreement being entered into, the contract could be terminated where the seller failed to obtain the agreement but proved he had used all reasonable endeavours to obtain it.