The Practical Lawyer

Following the Supreme Court decision in Jones v Kernott [2011], Charles Russell has produced this excellent summary of the legal analysis that needs to be conducted in such cases.

The Supreme Court has given important guidance on how to work out the respective shares when dealing with non-married joint owners.

When a public footpath crosses private land, who is responsible for the maintenance of the footpath?

When acting for joint buyers it is important to ascertain whether they are joint tenants or tenants in common (and, if so, their respective shares). If they are to be joint tenants, then it is important to give clear warning that either of them may change that arrangement - so they become tenants in common - by severing the joint tenancy. For instance:

The government plans to introduce a new offence of squatting in residential buildings.

Suppose there is a boundary dispute between adjoining landowners. The end result is that the LR adjudicator redraws the boundary line (and transfers land from one registered title to the other). Does this amount to a 'rectification' of the register?

It may seem an obvious point, but it is not always appreciated that obtaining a charging order does not necessarily guarantee repayment of the debt.

If there is a mistake in a contract, there are two ways in which that mistake can be corrected: either by rectification (re-writing the contract) or by a court declaration as to the meaning of the contract.

We all know that a deed has to be delivered as a deed. But, there is one little-known difference between delivery of a deed by an individual, as opposed to delivery by a company: for an individual to be bound, he must separately indicate that he intends to be bound by the deed (ie merely signing the deed is not enough). For a company, there is no need for any such intention.

Suppose there is a passage way at ground floor level between two properties. The passage way is owned by property A, and the first floor of property B extends over the passage way. Property A has not kept the passage in repair, but due to subsidence property B now needs to undertake repairs. In this situation property B does not have a right to erect scaffolding on property A, and nor can it deal with repairs without the consent of the owner of property A. In this situation the owner of property A can demand money in return for allowing access and consent to repair.