Claimant owning listed property — Defendant local authority granting planning permission to neighbour — Whether claimant suffering consequential loss — Whether loss attributable to defendants’ failure to place listing on local land charges register — Section 10 of Local Land Charges Act 1975
The claimant owned a listed property. He was unaware of the property’s listed status because the defendant local authority had failed to enter the listing on the local land charges register, and it therefore did not appear on the map maintained by the defendants.
The defendants subsequently granted the claimant’s neighbour permission to erect buildings, which would potentially reduce the amenity value of the appellant’s property. Section 66(1) of the Planning (Listed Building and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 provided that the impact upon a neighbouring listed building was a material consideration for the purposes of considering the grant of planning permission. The claimant maintained that had he been aware of the listed status of his property he would have notified the planning authority. For the purposes of the instant case it was assumed that, had he done so, his neighbour’s planning permission would have been refused. The claimant sought compensation from the defendants under section 10 of the Local Land Charges Act 1975. The claim was dismissed at first instance as having no reasonable cause of action. The claimant appealed.
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
Local land charges were enforceable against a purchaser who did not know, and had no reason to suspect, that such charges existed due to their non-registration. The purpose of section 10 of the 1975 Act was to compensate purchasers who had suffered “any” loss as a result of a failure to register such a charge. The defendants were therefore liable to pay compensation if their failure to register had caused loss to a purchaser.
The legislation did not create a blanket right to compensation. The point of the scheme was to safeguard the interests of a purchaser who had been exposed to harm, through inadvertently purchasing a property that was adversely affected by a land charge, and who was thereby exposed to a potential loss. For the purposes of the 1975 Act, therefore, the land had to be affected by an enforceable charge.
In the instant case, the land was not so affected. When he purchased the house the claimant had received a better deal than he had bargained for, since he did not pay a premium for the property’s listed status. Any loss as a result of the failure to register the charge was actually borne by the vendor.
Christopher Stoner (instructed by Champion Miller & Honey, of Tenterden) appeared for the claimant; Adrian Cooper (instructed by Weightman Vizards) appeared for the defendants
Vivienne Lane, barrister
