This article considers various legal aspects arising from the problem of “nuisance neighbours” and in particular the recent cases of Hussain v. Lancaster C.C. and Lippiatt v. South Gloucs. C. The central argument is that the restrictive approach to the liability of landlords for nuisances of their tenants (Smith v. Scott) is incompatible with Sedleigh-Denfield v. O’Callaghan. There is also consideration of the special position of local authority landlords (given recent developments in the tort of negligence, including Osman v. U.K.), the scope of the tort of private nuisance, and a survey of statutory remedies which might be used in addition to those in tort.

When should a contractual right be assignable to a non-party? English law's answer to this question is complex, and many of its rules are difficult to justify. In some respects, the law appears unreasonably pro-assignment, whereas sometimes it denies assignability to rights that should be assignable. This article contends that, in developing the law of assignability, the judiciary and Parliament have relied on a series of dubious ideas that deviate from the law's usual approach to contracts, and the current law rests partly on intuitive policy rationales that do not withstand scrutiny. The main aim of the article is to propose a new framework for thinking about the law of assignability that is more closely aligned with general ideas about contract law.

The case now known as Ilott v The Blue Cross [2017] UKSC 17 was the first time that the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 was considered at the highest judicial level. The Court of Appeal ([2015] EWCA Civ 797, noted in [2016] C.L.J. 31) had significantly enhanced the award given to an estranged and “disinherited” but needy daughter (Heather Ilott) at the expense of the charities (the Blue Cross, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) who were the principal beneficiaries under the will of her mother, Melita Jackson, leaving her with £143,000 out of the £486,000 estate primarily to purchase the council house in which she and her family were living. The Supreme Court unanimously allowed the charities’ appeal, restoring Judge Million's original £50,000 order. Giving the lead judgment, Lord Hughes reasserted the centrality of testamentary freedom in English law, emphasised the importance of the Act's limitation to “reasonable financial provision” for maintenance for non-spouse/civil partner applicants (s. 1(2)(b)), and held that a need for maintenance was a necessary but not sufficient condition for a successful claim. He approved previous case law in holding that maintenance could not “extend to any or everything which it would be desirable for the claimant to have” (at [14]), but was not limited to “subsistence” either (at [15]). He also confirmed that the focus of the correct test under the 1975 Act is not on the behaviour of the testatrix, but opined the reasonableness of her decision may still be a significant consideration, as may the extent of any “moral claim” even if that is not a “sine qua non” (at [20]).

This article considers how problems in legal historiography can lead to real legal problems, through a case-study of two recent judgments which appear to revolutionise the law on overreaching under section 2(1)(ii) of the Law of Property Act 1925. Their reasoning ignored plain wording in the Act, in a way foreshadowed by problems in the historiography of the 1925 property legislation; and the legislative history shows that the version of overreaching they promote, one with a clear political meaning, was rejected by Parliament. One of these decisions has now been reversed on appeal, but on reasoning so untenable as to invite further challenge; and now two Court of Appeal judgments on overreaching contradict, without even mentioning, two prior Court of Appeal decisions and a decision of the House of Lords. The court should reaffirm the law on overreaching, and academics should develop a new historiography.