Apr
15

Compulsory Purchase Works

There are many land owners who are effected by compulsory purchase works. It might not touch the piece of land which you own, but it might very well effect it. Compulsory purchase works is when legislation allows land owners, to claim compensation for land which they did not give.

Section 10 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965; and

Part I of the Land Compensation Act 1973.
The aim of this essay will be to discuss these two legal points point
and highlight any irregularities with the cases. I will attempt to
describe how this law is different from section 7 and how the courts
have differing views regarding the rewarding of compensation for the
two sections. At the end of this essay I will attempt for the reader
to have a good understanding of the laws but more importantly the
arguments surrounding them.

What Is Section 10

Section 10 is contained in the Compulsory purchase Act 1965. This
enables a claim to be made during the construction process only of a
compulsory purchase scheme. The relevant provision which is found in
section 10 is based upon a similar provision contained in section 68
of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act 1845. Although a literal
interpretation of the words used in section 68 did not provide the
basis for any substantial compensation entitlement for owners from
whom no land had been taken, the section has been interpreted by the
courts from an early date as providing exactly that; and section 10
now expressly recognizes and confirms that entitlement.

The fundamental principal underlying the compensation principal is
equivalence ie the claimant should be put, in so far as money can do
it, into substantially the same financial position that they would
have been in the absence of compulsory purchase powers.

How Relevant Is Section 10

This sets out the case law for the two acts. However these acts can be
critically analyzed, first looked at will be section 10 and the
McCarthy tests. Perhaps the major stumbling block as far as this rule
is concerned is that it dates back to 1874, one must ask the question
that surely times have changed and what was generally just and
equitable in 1874 may not necessarily be so now. Rule one of the test
states that this section only applies to the execution of the works
and not there use. If this is then compared to section 7 of the same
act were land is taken, both aspects are covered. Why then it is
needed for an extra act in section 1 of the Land compensation act 1973
to be introduced simply for the provision of the works use, when an
extension of the McCarthy tests or a new rule would have been more
relevant.

Conclusion

Prior to the 1973 act, not only was the public dissatisfied that it
could only claim for the effects of the works in very limited
circumstances, but also that claims for noise, dust and other nuisance
during construction and from the subsequent road use were almost
impossible. Given the need to control public expenditure, the land
compensation act 1973 has gone some way to satisfy these public
complaints in so far as, compensation is now claimable due to physical
factors. But the point was raised earlier how relevant section 10 is
and using the examples shown and the small amounts of compensation
that were paid it seems that there was very little use for section 10,
and any claim could be delayed and then claimed under part 1 at a
later date including the pv of the claim over that time. This would be
a far easier and more practical way of processing a claim and would
save the added paper work of processing two claims in relation to the
same property when ideally only one is strictly necessary. Regarding
the reasons why section 7 compensation seems to be always awarded and
section 10 very rarely, the only reasonable explanation for this is
that it is easy to prove that your land has been taken from you and
make a section 7 claim. But as we have discovered earlier in this
essay when all reasonable steps have been made to ensure that the
nuisance has been kept to a minimum a section 10 claim is not possible
and this is left very much open to the opinion of the judge. The final
point to redress is the method of valuation. There is no real method
of valuation that has to be used but the before and method version
seems to be the most popular. It would appear to make sense in view of
the Wildtree case to have a valuation method specified to eliminate
confusion in how the claim is to be valued. the perfect example to
follow in this case would be section 5 of the Compulsory Purchase Act
1965. Here there is a structured method of valuation to follow.

I believe that the best improvements would be to create a new law or
expand part 1 of the 73 act to include section 10 as it seems
ridiculous to have two separate laws when it is possible to claim them
together. This has already been proposed in the law commission paper
and it only makes sense.

Finally all compulsory purchase work is deemed to be in the best
interest of the community as a general and this is deemed in all cases
when awarding compensation. Government run projects tend to be under
funded so these points are usually considered by the Lands Tribunal
and the house of Lords.

Mary Anne Winslow is a member of Essay Writing Service counselling department team and a dissertation writing consultant. Contact her to get free counselling on custom essay writing.

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