About 180 victims who were previously being sued for failure to pay their covenant charges have emerged victorious after landowner Baron Deschauer lost his appeal at the High Court.
The Victims of the Land Banking Victims Association had bought plots of land from Terracorp that is owned by Alexander Deschauer on which there is hardly any development. Now, a High court verdict prohibits his Guernsey-based company Terracorp to no longer charge 180 plot-holders the increasing “covenant charges” to maintain roads and infrastructure that don’t exist. There appears to be no feasibility for plot holders to secure a planning permission for any development on that green belt even while the buyers were promised of one. Kusum Thanki was one of the 180 buyers who had bought a plot from one of Mr. Deschauer's companies, called Glenridge (Lee) Ltd (GLL) on an instalment programme lasting five years at the cost of £24,000. The plot site is based near Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire.
“The plot was transferred to my name when I paid £24,000 and the covenant charge for first 5 years. According to the GLL’s solicitor at the time, the transfer was conditional upon me paying the covenant charge which I did till 2016-17,” said Miss Thanki.
But five years later her covenant charges of £140 shot up by 5 percent annually and presently stands at £320. The contract according to Miss Thanki binds not just her but also her children, to pay their covenant charges until the development of the area is completed where none appears likely. While it is not known if the landowner is likely to appeal the decision, this verdict will pave way for people who bought land from him to claim back the charges they have already paid.
It is estimated that the buyers paid between £10,000 and £30,000 for one-acre plots owned by a network of Deschauer’s companies in Hertfordshire, Kent, Essex, Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Nottinghamshire.
The Times reported that Justice Miles could not find any written evidence that Deschauer’s companies, including Terracorp and the now-defunct Glenridge, had given undertakings to apply for planning permission, so the property sales were not invalid.
The judge said, “The purchasers bought their plots in the hope that, one day, the land would be developed and the roads would be built. But . . . the land was agricultural or green field. There had to be a radical shift in planning policies before it could be developed, and that might take generations.
“There is little commercial sense in plot purchasers having to pay, from day one, for the maintenance of roads etc that not only did not exist at the dates of the sales, but were not even foreseeably expected to be built. It is still stranger when one notes that the selling companies were under no obligation to apply for planning permission for the roads, or to build them.”
