Simon French & Anor v Ian Richard Hannah & Anor
Decision date: 23 June 2025
Neutral citation: [2025] UKUT 190 (LC)
Overall AI summary confidence: medium
Short overview
This short overview is intended to summarise the case, issues and outcome so far as they are supported by the judgment.
AI confidence in this short overview: medium
This appeal concerns which half of a semi-detached building owns a small un-metalled triangular widening ("Area A") on a shared drive after a 1959 severance and conveyance that included a plan said to be "for identification only". The FTT accepted the authenticity of a 1959 planning permission and treated it as a surrounding circumstance, concluded the drive should be 20 feet wide at the junction and ordered registration entries accordingly, but its order treated the drive as 20 feet wide up to point E which the parties and tribunal agree was wrong; the FTT decision must be set aside and substituted, with the appeal focussing solely on Area A. No appeal is taken against the FTT's primary factual findings, but the parties dispute what those findings were and how they should be recorded for registration.
Ratio decidendi
This summary is intended to identify the ratio decidendi, meaning the legal reasons for deciding and the binding part of the decision.
AI confidence in this ratio decidendi summary: medium
From the judgment notes it can be taken that where a conveyance plan is expressed to be "for identification only", extrinsic evidence (including contemporaneous planning permissions and physical site features) may be admissible to determine the intended boundary, and that the tribunal has power to make a precise boundary determination for registration where the conveyances together with surrounding circumstances adequately resolve a binary boundary dispute.
Obiter dicta
This summary is intended to identify obiter dicta, meaning observations made by the way that were not necessary to deciding the case and are not binding.
AI confidence in this obiter dicta summary: medium
The notes record obiter observations that a superimposed block plan attempting to apply a schematic planning drawing to the actual site can be conjectural and of limited weight, and that in rare cases precise determination under the Land Registration regime may be impossible yet a useful binary decision can nevertheless be made and recorded.
Warning
The chunk ends mid-sentence and contains some ambiguities about precisely what factual findings the FTT made; portions of the FTT's reasoning and the site visit observations are not fully reproduced here. The provided notes are incomplete and end mid-sentence; some of the FTT's reasoning, site-visit observations and the precise substituted order are not reproduced here.