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09 February 2024 / Andrew Francis
Issue: 8058 / Categories: Features , Profession , Property
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When planning law meets restrictive covenants

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The separation of the two systems can be frustrating to lay people & adds to the burden on their advisers. Andrew Francis helps make us at home in this area of the law
  • Explains the separation between the systems governing private rights and obligations, and those governing planning matters.
  • Illustrates the triangular relationship between the parties in large-scale developments.
  • Discusses the judgment in House and another v Waverley Borough Council and another [2023].

Private property rights and obligations, such as those within restrictive covenants or easements, are not generally considered easy bedfellows with rights and obligations under planning law. Even when they do fall in together, either of them is usually seen as having little relevance to the other. This legal apartheid is due mainly to three factors. First, there is the overriding concept of what are ‘material considerations’ when considering matters within planning law (see the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s 70(2) and the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, s 38(6)). Private rights under covenants,

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