Speaking Tasks: You are expected to speak for about three-four minutes.

1. What is real property?

2. Describe the difference between real property and personal property.

3. Tell about four types of freehold estate.

4. Describe the difference between a freehold estate and leasehold.

5. Tell about the types of easements.

6. Tell about the duties of a fee simple owner.

7. Tell about life estate and remainder interest.

8. What are the clauses of a lease? Tell about quiet enjoyment.

9. What are the rights and obligations of a Landlord?

10. What are the rights and obligations of a Tenant?

Task 4: COUPLE ARE TOLD TO TEAR DOWN THEIR £750,000 HOME

You are taking an introductory legal course. You have been asked to analyze the following case. Read the article and try to find solution to the problem. Then read the real outcome of this situation and compare it with your guess.

By Lucia Morris Daily Mail, Monday, August 14, 200.. They had permission for a bungalow… but this is what they built instead

Nestling in the New Forest, the recently completed five-bedroom house with 11 acres and its own lake has been valued at £750,000 by estate agents.

But because of a ‘blatant’ breach of planning regulations, the bulldozers could soon be moving in –knocking down the value of the desirable country house to precisely nothing.

Ken Duffy, a former nightclub owner and mechanical engineer, has laboured on the project 7 days a week for the last two and a half years.

‘Can you imagine what it would feel like to knock something down which you have spent so long to build?’ asked the father of three last night.

‘I would be devastated – and bankrupt.’

But his attempts to paint himself as the victim cut no ice with New Forest District Council.

It says that throughout the building work, Mr. Duffy was repeatedly warned that he had permission only for a bungalow with less than half the floor space he chose to construct. Head of development control Chris Elliot said: ‘Mr. Duffy’s actions are the most flagrant breach of planning permission I have ever come across.’

The roots of the dispute are in 1997, when Mr. Duffy and his wife Jacky bought the plot with planning permission for a bungalow and the family moved down from London.

‘We asked the planners at the time whether we could build a house here and they said no,’ he recalled. ‘So we went to appeal to allow us the opportunity to have habitable roof space – an upstairs room under roof. We also asked for permitted development rights, which allow us to add extra space to our home. Everyone in England is allowed this as a matter of right and you can add up 50 cubic meters in the roof space. We won the appeal and I began to build the house. As far as I am concerned, I have fulfilled any criteria that the council wanted.’

Mr. Duffy, 46, lavished around £250,000 on the building work on the plot in the Hampshire village of Ossemsley, near Limington.

With planners determined to stand their ground, he is now instructing a solicitor and appealing against the enforcement notice, which instructs him to demolish the property within 6 months.

His 41-year-old wife is finding the prospect of losing her home daunting after recently gave birth to Melissa, a sister to Connor, six, and Eamonn, four.

‘The council is quite happy to make my children homeless without giving us a fair say. We were allowed just one and a half minutes to put our point across to the planning committee. I think they had already made their minds up well before they heard from us. I’m just in total disbelief that the council could tell us to knock it down because I still believe that we are right and they are wring.’

The couple took their children to the committee meeting last week to highlight the impact that the decision would have on all the family.

The property cannot be seen from the road and neighbours have no view of it but the council is adamant that its committee came to the right decision.

Mr. Elliott added: “Mr. Duffy was told repeatedly that he didn’t have planning permission for a house of this size and would have to face the consequences if he continued to build it. We’ve done our best to advise him throughout that the building he was constructing didn’t comply with the planning permission he had been given. All warnings have not been heeded. The floor area is twice as much as is permitted and he doesn’t qualify for permitted development rights because this right only applies once the building is completed. Then you can extend it, but not before. In a nutshell, the building must come down.’

1. Discuss this case in small groups. What problems do you see with the way Ken Duffy is managing this situation.

Problems.

1. ____________________________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________________________

3. ____________________________________________________________________________

2. What steps can Ken Duffy take to solve his problem and save his house?

1. ____________________________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________________________

3. ____________________________________________________________________________

Daily Mail, Thursday, March 22, 200..