Offices to flats: a rare modification?

Property practitioners will be well aware of the jurisdiction to modify restrictive covenants affecting freehold land conferred upon the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) by s 84 of the Law of Property Act 1925. Freehold owners keen to develop their land will often rely upon one of the four grounds set out in s 84 to discharge or modify any valid and binding covenant which inhibits or prevents their desired development. Thus, obsolete covenants (ground (a)); or covenants which confer no practical benefit of substantial value (ground (aa)); or covenants where the beneficiaries agree (ground (b)); or covenants the discharge of which will cause no injury (ground (c)), may be swept away and constructive land development may be facilitated. But the jurisdiction is not limited to freehold covenants. Leasehold covenants may also be modified or discharged, and this article considers the recent case of Shaviram Normandy Ltd v Basingstoke and Deane