The Law Commission has now published its final report with recommendations on reform into the ‘right for light’ affecting developments in England and Wales.
The Law Commission writes:
We commenced this project in March 2012 and published a consultation paper on 18 February 2013. We have now published our final Report, Rights to Light (Law Com No 356), which contains our recommendations for reform.
Our key recommendations are:
- 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.
