English Law Commission Report on Rights to Light

The Law Commision of England has published a report on the Rights to Light that deals with the types of disputes that arise when a landowner wants to put up a building that may interfere with a neighbour’s right to light.

The Commission recommends:

• a statutory notice procedure which would allow a landowners to require their neighbours to tell them within a specified time if they intend to seek an injunction to protect their right to light, or to lose the potential for that remedy to be granted;
• a statutory test to clarify when courts may order damages to be paid rather than halting development or ordering demolition;
• an updated version of the procedure that allows landowners to prevent their neighbours from acquiring rights to light by prescription;
• amendment of the law governing where an unused right to light is treated as abandoned; and
• a power for the Lands Chamber of the Upper Tribunal to discharge or modify obsolete or unused rights to light.