Easement of support and the Party Wall Act: Misnomers and misunderstandings

Abstract

This paper will examine in detail the area of law that applies to party walls by making comparison between the law before the emergence of the Metropolitan Buildings Act 1844 (including its successors) and its interaction with the said Act after its enactment. Hence, by critically looking at this area of law, it may be possible to see how Section 9 of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 and its former counterpart (Section 54 of Part IV London Building Acts (Amendment) Act 1939) have been drafted. It would be fair to say that, generally, easements have been a rather complex area of law and are constantly evolving. Hence, it appears that it would have made a great deal of sense to avoid getting drawn into such an area of law within the ambit of the Party Wall Act. After all, the relative success of the said Act has been founded very much on its prescriptive nature. Accordingly, this paper will examine the foregoing inference.