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NLJ this week: Baffling signs may adversely affect your property rights

27 September 2024
Issue: 8087 / Categories: Legal News , Property
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190817

Putting up a sign—for example, ‘no parking’—is a useful & easy way to maintain a legal right, thus preventing prescriptive easements from arising. But what happens if the sign is ambiguous, misleading or inappropriate?

In this week’s NLJ, Thomas Rothwell and Kavish Shah, Falcon Chambers, look at a series of cases in which the intended meaning was not conveyed.

For example, Cleveland Golf Club’s sign was too vague, or perhaps too politely phrased. Instead of a clear ‘Keep out’, the club warned it could be dangerous to trespass on the course. Rothwell and Shah write: ‘The High Court held that, if the owners of the golf course had wished to make clear that walking over the golf course was objected to, it would have been easy for them to erect notices to that effect… As it happened, the wording sounded more like a health and safety warning. It was therefore insufficiently clear to bring home to passers-by that the use of the golf course was objected to.’

The authors present a clutch of cases. As they write, ‘The increasing body of case law in this area shows no sign of abating’.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Birketts—trainee cohort

Birketts—trainee cohort

Firm welcomes new cohort of 29 trainee solicitors for 2025

Keoghs—four appointments

Keoghs—four appointments

Four partner hires expand legal expertise in Scotland and Northern Ireland

Brabners—Ben Lamb

Brabners—Ben Lamb

Real estate team in Yorkshire welcomes new partner

NEWS
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The Court of Protection has ruled in Macpherson v Sunderland City Council that capacity must be presumed unless clearly rebutted. In this week's NLJ, Sam Karim KC and Sophie Hurst of Kings Chambers dissect the judgment and set out practical guidance for advisers faced with issues relating to retrospective capacity and/or assessments without an examination
Delays and dysfunction continue to mount in the county court, as revealed in a scathing Justice Committee report and under discussion this week by NLJ columnist Professor Dominic Regan of City Law School. Bulk claims—especially from private parking firms—are overwhelming the system, with 8,000 cases filed weekly
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve charts the turbulent progress of the Employment Rights Bill through the House of Lords, in this week's NLJ
From oligarchs to cosmetic clinics, strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) target journalists, activists and ordinary citizens with intimidating legal tactics. Writing in NLJ this week, Sadie Whittam of Lancaster University explores the weaponisation of litigation to silence critics
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