Articles

In Stenner v Teignbridge DC [2025] UKUT 204 (LC) the Applicant claimed a right to store boats on a small part of the Respondent Council’s car park during the winter months. The application was confined to the small area of land said to be subject to the right and for a limited period, 1st October to 31st May. The FTT (Colin Green) rejected the application on the basis that the ouster principle was engaged and that the right claimed effectively denied the servient owner any reasonable use of the land subject to the right during the period in respect of which it was claimed.

Hot on the heels of the Court of Appeal decision in Lowe v The Governors of Sutton's Hospital In Charterhouse, the county court decision in Macintyre v Cowdray Trust Ltd and Rathbones Trust Company provides encouragement to both landlords and tenants on the thorny issue of tenancy deposits. Aristide Hoang-Brown considers how the judgment impacts landlord and tenant advisers.

Harrison Engler discusses the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) decision in a complex land registration case about the registration of an easement. He represented the respondents. The applicant sought to register a right of way over the respondents’ land, relying primarily on a 2010 County Court order and, in the alternative, on prescription.

Is there a difference in how the courts approach piercing the corporate veil in matrimonial proceedings as compared with non-matrimonial proceedings? Case law now establishes that the answer is definitively ‘no’. Jonathan Cowen and Christopher Stirling highlight the points practitioners need to be aware of given the limited power to pierce the corporate veil.

Madeleine Southey summarises a judgment for Family Law Week about an appeal against a finding of rape. The finding, which had been made following a fact-finding hearing in Children Act 1989 proceedings 3 years previously, was overturned by Mr Justice Hayden.

Dr Sara Hunton discusses Standish v Standish in which the Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s largest ever reduction of a divorce award. Previously, the Court of Appeal had reduced the wife’s award from £45 million to £25 million finding that some of the husband’s assets should not have been treated as ‘matrimonial’.