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26 May 2023 / Andrew Francis
Issue: 8026 / Categories: Features , Property
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Public nuisance: all the world’s a stage

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Private nuisance, from overlooking to knotweed: what is the remedy? Andrew Francis presents a property drama in five acts
  • As a number of recent cases have shown, claims in private nuisance are just as much a feature of the landscape of property disputes as those based on other rights and obligations, such as under easements and covenants.

Act 1: Overlooking

London, Bankside: Most of us will by now be familiar with the judgment of the Supreme Court handed down on Wednesday 1 February 2023 in Fearn and others v Board of Trustees of the Tate Gallery [2023] UKSC 4, [2023] All ER (D) 02 (Feb). This judgment upheld the claimant tenants’ claim based on private nuisance to the enjoyment of their flats caused by visitors to the Tate Gallery overlooking those flats from the viewing gallery on the south side of the Tate Gallery’s building at Bankside in London. The Supreme Court gave us a modern framework to use in tortious private nuisance claims where real property interests

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NEWS
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NLJ this week: Renters’ Rights revolution begins—brace for tribunal chaos

The abolition of assured shorthold tenancies and section 21 evictions marks the beginning of a ‘brave new world’ for England’s rental sector, writes Daniel Bacon of Seddons GSC

NLJ this week: Civil procedure gets a spring overhaul
Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way column rounds up a flurry of procedural and regulatory changes reshaping housing, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and personal injury litigation
NLJ this week: Why GP complaints are going nowhere
Patients are being systematically failed by an NHS complaints regime that is opaque, poorly enforced and often stacked against them, argues Charles Davey of The Barrister Group
NLJ this week: Prenups meet a jurisdictional brick wall
A wealthy Russian divorce battle has produced a sharp warning about trying to challenge foreign nuptial agreements in the wrong English court. Writing in NLJ this week, Vanessa Friend and Robert Jackson of Hodge Jones & Allen examine Timokhin v Timokhina, where the High Court enforced Russian judgments arising from a prenuptial agreement despite arguments based on the landmark Radmacher decision
NLJ this week: Has Rylands v Fletcher come back from the dead?
An obscure Victorian tort may be heading for an unexpected revival after a significant Privy Council ruling that could reshape liability for dangerous escapes, according to Richard Buckley, barrister and emeritus professor of law at the University of Reading
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