In its latest list of permission to appeal decisions, the Supreme Court announced that it would not be hearing appeals in the following sets of proceedings, which raised property and planning issues. None of the cases, it said, raised a point of law of general public importance.
• Sugarman and ors v CJS Investments LLP and ors [2014] EWCA Civ 1239
Last year the Court of Appeal allowed an appeal by leaseholders in a Manchester block of flats, in a ruling that left a company that holds more than half the leases with only a single vote on appointment of directors to the building’s management company. The Court overturned a High Court decision that each flat came with a share in the Lawrence House Management Company, and that leaseholders were entitled to one vote per share. That ruling would have given CJS Investments LLP, leaseholder of 66 of the 104 flats, an automatic majority in any vote.
• Ioannou v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2014] EWCA Civ 1432
In October, the Court of Appeal overturned a ruling that an inspector had failed to consider the full range of powers potentially available to him, when considering a house converted into five flats. At the High Court in 2013, Ouseley J had found that the inspector failed to consider whether he could permit a three-flat scheme to address the objections of impact to amenity raised by the five-flat development, under s174(3)(b) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, even though the amenity in question existed only as a result of the development that was the subject of the notice. However, allowing an appeal by the Communities Secretary, Sullivan LJ ruled that the inspector’s conclusion that he did not have power to consider the three flats scheme was correct.
• Hunt v Optima (Cambridge) Ltd [2014] EWCA Civ 714
While the Court of Appeal allowed two claims by buyers of flats in Peterborough against consultants under professional consultant’s certificates issued ahead of their purchase, it rejected most buyers’ claims as their certificates were issued after exchange of contracts and completion of the leases. The building works were defective and the inspections were carried out negligently, but the developer became insolvent, and so the best hope of recovery was from the consultants. The Court of Appeal dismissed the claims from buyers whose certificates post-dated exchange and completion on the ground that, in order to recover damages for negligent misstatement, reliance on the statement in question must be shown.
• Southend-on-Sea Borough Council v Armour [2014] EWCA Civ 231
In March last year, the Court of Appeal dismissed a local authority’s appeal against refusal of a possession order. While a recorder found that the council’s decision to initiate possession proceedings had been reasonable, and that the tenant would have had no defence when the proceedings were first issued, she concluded that the proportionality of making a possession order had to be decided as at the date of trial. The possession proceedings were issued in June 2011, but not heard until March 2012, and by then the recorder found that a possession order was no longer proportionate. She said that in the intervening period, the tenant had been found to lack capacity to conduct litigation, having been diagnosed with depression and Asperger’s syndrome, while nearly a year had passed without the respondent’s behaviour causing any further problems.
• Austin v Miller Argent (South Wales) Limited [2014] EWCA Civ 1012
Last July, the Court of Appeal upheld a decision to refuse a protective costs order (PCO) which a woman claimed would enable her to bring a nuisance claim in respect of an open-cast coal mine near Merthyr, part of a land reclamation project intended to restore the natural landscape. She had previously sought unsuccessfully to take group litigation order proceedings against the operators. She relied upon the Aarhus Convention, but the High Court and Court of Appeal found that her private nuisance claim lacked the necessary public benefit to justify a PCO.
