Property Law Updates

The basis on which stamp duty is charged is being changed in a move that will benefit most purchasers of property. The old system applied a single rate of stamp duty to the sale price,

The advent of the motor car created fertile ground for land disputes, as one couple found to their cost after their neighbour succeeded in establishing his ‘squatter’s right’ to park his cars on a country

In a case which brought into direct conflict the conservation of wildlife habitats and the desperate need for new homes, the High Court has rejected a test case plea to put the survival of rare

Party politics and planning issues met head to head as a judge rejected arguments that the membership of a council committee had been massaged in order to push through plans for a major regeneration project.

The intense pressure for more new homes – particularly affordable ones – in the South-East of England trumped countryside protection policies as the High Court opened the way for construction of 400 new dwellings in

A couple whose ‘grand design’ to convert an old granary into a dream home almost came unstuck due to a solicitor’s negligent failure to spot a planning glitch have won damages of just £250 –

Commercial tenants engaged in a struggle with their landlords – which encompassed the presence of a Rhodesian Ridgeback dog on the land as well as planning and other issues – have failed to convince the

In enforcing the full rigour of green belt protection policies following an important test case, the Court of Appeal has scotched controversial plans for the expansion of a Surrey aerodrome and the replacement of grass

In an illustration of the legal tangle that building disputes can so easily become, the owner of a flat, who was fully entitled to sack a contractor who let him down, has nevertheless failed to

A farmer’s widow whose land was compulsorily purchased to make way for a bypass is in line for a substantial compensation payout after a tribunal ruled that the site had valuable planning potential as a