An interesting contrast between the letting market and the sales market is the amount of due diligence that tenants and purchasers are likely to carry out. This is particularly true in the prime Central London market – the home of the “UHNWI” and “uber-tenant”. It’s difficult to make a true comparison. A wealthy individual who…

CLAIMS ARISING FROM OFF-PLAN INVESTMENTS In the last few years we have dealt with a large number of cases involving issues arising from off-plan investment schemes, often for clients based in East Asia. Typically these schemes involve the payments of deposits of up to 30% or even more. It isn’t unknown for investors to pay…

DEVELOPMENT ISSUES Whether you develop large mixed use schemes or residential extensions if you want your project to go smoothly there are legal issues that shouldn’t be overlooked. Dewar Hogan supports commercial and residential developers faced with difficult legal issues and claims encountered during the development cycle. Identifying problems in advance by an appraisal is…

Some of the most satisfying cases, and also some of the most perplexing, come when other areas of law altogether raise their head in a property context. One such area is consumer law. There is a number of situations where parties to perfectly common property transactions might stand in the relationship of consumer and trader…

A situation which often grieves residential leaseholders is this – a developer comes along and either purchases the freehold himself, or else enters into a deal with the freeholder, and then proposes to put a new flat or two on top of the existing building. Existing leaseholders seldom like this idea, involving as it does…

The firm Dewar Hogan is a well-known and respected niche property litigation practice in the City. The firm consists of seven lawyers who deal with all type of commercial and residential property litigation and advisory work. The firm’s current matters includes development work such as opposed lease renewals, rights to light, party wall, and access…

If there is one section of the Party Walls Act which comes across a litigator’s desk more than another, it’s section 7(2). It doesn’t sound complicated – ‘the building owner shall compensate any adjoining owner and adjoining occupier for any loss or damage which may result to them by reason of any work executed in…

Yesterday the Court of Appeal delivered its judgment in the case of Mundy –v- The Trustees of the Sloane Stanley Estate (see our earlier post here). It’s a bit of a damp squib, since, predictably, those who examined the puffs of white smoke and predicted victory for the big battalions have been proven correct. Indeed, Lord…

As most readers will know, long leaseholders of flats are entitled to extend their leases upon payment of a premium. The Court of Appeal is presently considering its decision in the case of Mundy v Mundy v The Trustees of the Sloane Stanley Estate, which concerns the method of arriving at the premium a leaseholder…