Developers - love thy neighbourly matters

Neighbourly matters

My learned real estate disputes and neighbourly matters colleague, Hollie Wright, and I published an article in the Estates Gazette on 27 August 2020. In it, we look at a checklist of key strategic "neighbourly rights" issues that developers have to resolve during site assembly.

The issues

There are a number of steps on the critical pathway of a development which can be progressed, whether or not work on site is ongoing, such as:

• Rights of light
• Electronic communications equipment
• Party walls
• Boundary disputes
• Nuisance (noise and vibrations)
• Easements (private rights of way and utilities)
• Stopping-up orders
• Restrictive covenants
• Leasehold restrictions
• Access to neighbouring land
• Trespassers/squatters

How to deal with these issues

Our advice to developers, broadly speaking, is take into consideration the entire suite of potential issues with third-party rights as early as possible.

By way of a brief checklist:

• think and plan ahead from an early stage
• get the right professional team on board 
• formulate a clear risk-minimising strategy
• incorporate the timing and costs into the development plan 
• manage quantifiable risks until they become known and quantified
• consider insurance for less quantifiable risks
• remember to involve the bank or other financier

And if it looks tricky?

...that's fine. Howard Kennedy is the real estate development firm of choice. Our neighbourly rights team here deals with difficult and seemingly intractable matters every day. We've even dealt successfully with embassies in Central London, development sites above railways and dense urban sites.