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Civil way: 18 October 2019

17 October 2019
Issue: 7860 / Categories: Features , Procedure & practice , Civil way
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Overcoming restriction; petty relocation; inheritance ruling dead; mousy divorces

Taking a rifle to a stifle

The current fashion is for business premises to rot away unoccupied. If it is not the local planning authority which is standing in the way of conversion to dwellings, then a restrictive covenant is the frustrating factor. An alternative to paying a multitude of arms and legs by way of an indemnity policy premium or assassinating the covenantee, is to get rid of the covenant. The discharge or modification provisions on which we were weaned that are s 84 of the Law of Property Act 1925 are available not only for freeholds but also for leaseholds (s 84(12))—and not a lot of people know that—of more than 40 years where 25 of them have expired.

And so it was in Shaviram Normandy Ltd v Basingstoke and Deana Borough Council [2019] UKUT 256 (LC), involving the former UK headquarters of IBM which have been empty since 2013 and fallen into a significant state of repair, accelerated by vandalism. The

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
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