Case Study: Rectification Claim

Sanne van Vroenhoven and Richard Kerry recently successfully settled a rectification claim and obtained an indemnity for our client which covered the vast majority of the costs incurred as a result of the claim.

In 1998, our client purchased a landlocked parcel of land “C’s Land”. The only access to the land was via the Defendant’s carpark “D’s Land”.

In 2000, our client purchased a further small strip of land, the “Purchased Land”, from the Defendant. The intention was that the rights which benefited the Purchased Land would also benefit C’s Land. However, this was not clearly set out in the TP1, due to errors on the part of our client’s property solicitors.   

In 2016, our client attempted to sell C’s land and the Purchased Land, as one parcel, at auction. Following the auction, the purchaser’s solicitors wrote to our client and identified a number of issues, including that only the Purchased Land had a right of way over D’s Land and the right to connect into pipes, wires and cables.

This was the first time that the issues with the 2000 purchase had come to light. The property solicitors who acted for our client at the time they bought the Purchased Land attempted to resolve the problems with the Defendant.

The Defendant maintained that the rights granted to our client were as per those set out in the transfer of 2000. It offered to grant our client new rights for the sum of £30,000.

It was at this point that our client instructed us in relation to the dispute with its previous property solicitors and the Defendant.

We persuaded the property solicitors who had acted for our client to admit that their mistakes had led to the necessary rights not being registered correctly.  After some further negotiation we obtained an indemnity from those solicitors for our client in respect of their costs associated with seeking to rectify the mistake.

Our client issued proceedings against the Defendant to rectify the transfer, so that the rights extended over C’s Land as well. The Defendant defended the claim on the basis that there had been no common intention for the rights to benefit C’s Land. The Defendant also argued the length of time that had passed since the purchase of the Purchased Land meant rectification was unreasonable.

We successfully negotiated a settlement on behalf of our client as against the Defendant. It was agreed that the easements would be amended so that the rights would extend over C’s land, if our client paid the Defendant £5,000 in consideration and £5,000 towards its legal costs.

Once Bell Lax had successfully settled the matter, we worked closely with @Simon Jobson from @Jobson Solicitors to effect the agreement via a deed of easement.

The indemnity we obtained for our client from its original solicitors covered over 90% of its legal fees and 100% of the sums it was required to pay to the Defendant.