Taking a rifle to a stifle
The current fashion is for business premises to rot away unoccupied. If it is not the local planning authority which is standing in the way of conversion to dwellings, then a restrictive covenant is the frustrating factor. An alternative to paying a multitude of arms and legs by way of an indemnity policy premium or assassinating the covenantee, is to get rid of the covenant. The discharge or modification provisions on which we were weaned that are s 84 of the Law of Property Act 1925 are available not only for freeholds but also for leaseholds (s 84(12))—and not a lot of people know that—of more than 40 years where 25 of them have expired.
And so it was in Shaviram Normandy Ltd v Basingstoke and Deana Borough Council [2019] UKUT 256 (LC), involving the former UK headquarters of IBM which have been empty since 2013 and fallen into a significant state of repair, accelerated by vandalism. The headlessee sought to convert the building into 114 residential flats.
