The House of Lords decision in Delaware Mansions Ltd v Westminster City Council [2001] 44 EG 150 (CS) affirms that liability for damage caused by encroaching tree roots is incurred when the tree owner becomes, or should have become, aware of a real risk to the claimant’s building.
More boldly perhaps, it was further held that it was immaterial that all this may have happened before the claimant acquired the affected property: see the illuminating comments of John Murdoch in
Damages exceeding £0.5m were awarded to compensate the claimant for expenditure incurred on remedial work to the block of flats affected. However, it is plain that nothing like that sum would have been recovered if notice had not been given to the defendant council giving them a reasonable time to abate the nuisance by removal of the tree, or otherwise. Also significant was the fact that the block (let on long leases) was effectively given away by the previous owner, thus ruling out any (double recovery) question of the work being funded out of an appropriate price reduction.
The overall effect of the decision is to bring tree root cases into the body of law dealing generally with an owner’s responsibility for things happening naturally on his land: see
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The House of Lords decision in Delaware Mansions Ltd v Westminster City Council [2001] 44 EG 150 (CS) affirms that liability for damage caused by encroaching tree roots is incurred when the tree owner becomes, or should have become, aware of a real risk to the claimant’s building.
More boldly perhaps, it was further held that it was immaterial that all this may have happened before the claimant acquired the affected property: see the illuminating comments of John Murdoch in Root of all the trouble Estates Gazette 24 November 2001, p144.
Damages exceeding £0.5m were awarded to compensate the claimant for expenditure incurred on remedial work to the block of flats affected. However, it is plain that nothing like that sum would have been recovered if notice had not been given to the defendant council giving them a reasonable time to abate the nuisance by removal of the tree, or otherwise. Also significant was the fact that the block (let on long leases) was effectively given away by the previous owner, thus ruling out any (double recovery) question of the work being funded out of an appropriate price reduction.
The overall effect of the decision is to bring tree root cases into the body of law dealing generally with an owner’s responsibility for things happening naturally on his land: see PP 2002/62.
