A landowner claiming prescriptive rights of light must prove that the windows in its building have had uninterrupted access to light for 20 years. The right to light will then become absolute, and can be used to prevent developments that impede its access to light. Alternatively, the landowner may be awarded damages for an infringement.
Landowners can prevent the acquisition of prescriptive rights of light by proving that neighbours have enjoyed access to light by an agreement or consent given in a deed or in writing: section 3 Prescription Act 1832. CGIS City Plaza Shares 1 Ltd v Britel Fund Trustees Ltd [2012] EWHC 1594 (Ch) concerned an application for a declaration that the City Plaza building in Birmingham city centre enjoyed prescriptive rights of light over a neighbouring property known as Bank House.
A landowner claiming prescriptive rights of light must prove that the windows in its building have had uninterrupted access to light for 20 years. The right to light will then become absolute, and can be used to prevent developments that impede its access to light. Alternatively, the landowner may be awarded damages for an infringement.
Landowners can prevent the acquisition of prescriptive rights of light by proving that neighbours have enjoyed access to light by an agreement or consent given in a deed or in writing: section 3 Prescription Act 1832. CGIS City Plaza Shares 1 Ltd v Britel Fund Trustees Ltd [2012] EWHC 1594 (Ch) concerned an application for a declaration that the City Plaza building in Birmingham city centre enjoyed prescriptive rights of light over a neighbouring property known as Bank House.
The owner of Bank House accepted that City Plaza had been in existence for sufficiently long to have acquired prescriptive rights of light, but – it claimed – for the terms of a previous conveyance. The conveyance granted the owner of Bank House a right to build up to any height even though this might interfere with the light flowing to the buildings for the time being erected on any adjoining land owned by, or vested in, the City of Birmingham Corporation.
City Plaza was constructed on land that used to be in the ownership of the Corporation. Therefore, the court had to decide whether the conveyance authorised the owners of Bank House to interrupt the light reaching City Plaza no matter who owned the land, or whether the authorisation was limited to the period while the land was vested in the Corporation.
The court agreed that it was possible to interpret the conveyance in both ways. However, the language and circumstances made it probable that the reference to the land owned by the Corporation was included to help identify the land that was subject to the agreement, as opposed to being a reference to the identity of a particular landowner. In the judge’s view, the parties had referred to land in the ownership of the Corporation to ensure that the agreement was wide-ranging and to affirm that the Corporation would not seek to assert rights of light in respect of any of its property in the vicinity.
The geographical position of land does not change, but landowners come and go. It was unlikely that the parties would deliberately have chosen to create the uncertainty that would flow from an authorisation to build that was temporary and incomplete because it subsisted only for the duration of the ownership of one of the parties to the conveyance.
The parties to the conveyance had made an agreement that satisfied the requirements of section 3. It conferred rights to build that were exercisable against the Corporation and its successors. Consequently, City Plaza had not acquired prescriptive rights of light over Bank House.
Interestingly, the litigation was sparked because the owners of Bank House registered a light obstruction notice. It served its purpose well by flushing out potential objections well in advance of any future development that the landowner might one day wish to undertake.
Allyson Colby is a property law consultant
