Page 7 - ALG Issue 4 2018

Insurance
Quiet Enjoyment
Quiet enjoyment is an emotive phrase when you have an allotment. People come to the allotment for peace and quiet. There may be problems elsewhere, but an allotment should be a safe haven for people to relax and to grow vegetables, fruit and flowers.
NAS are fully aware that an allotment site can regrettably become a battleground, a place of feuds, wrangling and excesses of behaviour. However, discussions at the first Regional Meeting of
the London Region of the NAS revealed that a number of property developers are infiltrating allotment committees in London. The aim is to drive out bona fide tenants through bullying and harassment, whereupon the site can be sold for residential development. There was a suggestion that some local authorities support this.
This article will deal with legal aspects of quiet enjoyment, whereas another will follow written in conjunction with Grant Smith, a Mentor, on what to do if your allotment site is earmarked for property development.
I was a witness under subpoena in a High Court on an issue of quiet enjoyment about 10 years ago. I was inspecting the property for another purpose. The building consisted of a shop on the ground floor with a shared passageway to a restaurant in the basement. The landlord used the shop as a store for grocery provisions instead of as a retail shop. He wanted to redevelop the whole building. Instead of doing the decent thing of buying out the lease of the basement
at a fair price, he moved his grocery provisions at lunchtime, in the evenings blocking the access way in the hope that it would make the basement restauranteur bankrupt and his lease would be forfeited. Needless to say, the basement restauranteur was successful and received substantial damages in a decision in the High Court.
It has come as a surprise to me that I should encounter similar problems with my plots several years later. Liz Bunting was extremely helpful to me, and through some unconventional actions, the problems were resolved last year:
• Legal definition of quiet enjoyment
• Landlord and tenant relationship in an allotment setting
• Exclusive possession
• Derogation of grant
• What to do if you encounter these problems
The problems often arise from empathetically baseless orders, commands and restrictions from the committee without regard to an understanding of good horticultural practices, seasons and landlord and tenant law. They do it because they believe they can. Also,
they often blatantly flout the landlord’s unwritten promise of quiet enjoyment as being some legal nonsense. Some allotment tenants can be easily discouraged and the situation escalates to an outright war. It is, therefore, the committee’s responsibility as landlords on a self-managed site to be a good neighbour to its tenants.
There was a Caribbean man who grew straggly sweetcorn on his allotment with a yearly struggle near to my allotment. However, last year he was further behind than before and at his wits end, with the committee onto him to give up his allotment. However, I approached him and with a cultivator his plot was ready for planting out with sweetcorn within an hour. He wanted me to get some Ammonium Nitrate to aid the growth from Tuckers. However, Ammonium Nitrate can be used in explosives and not unsurprisingly Tuckers would not sell it to me! I bought Ammonium Sulphate instead. I also bought
a sharp hoe for him. The sweetcorn grew to 12 feet in height and become a wonder and fascination on the rest of the site. He saw me later in the year and gave me some white sweetcorn cobs, which I had never seen before, and I ate them for my dinner that evening. Chris Barker LLB FRICS (Chartered Surveyor), Vice Chairman London Region
New benefit for NAS
members
Allotmenteers Liability Insurance
The National Allotment Society (NAS) has introduced a new member benefit in conjunction with Shield Total Insurance who already operate the NAS insurance scheme.
This benefit has been created via an insurance policy purchased by the NAS to give liability cover to all member plotholders.
Who will benefit from this scheme?
This benefit will be enjoyed by all plotholders who have either paid their subscription of £3 per member via an Association to NAS, or are paid up Individual or Life Members of the NAS.
What is this product?
This is a liability insurance product purchased by the NAS
but designed to provide protection to member plotholders accused of accidently causing injury or damaging property. The benefit is worth up to £50,000 and will pay for defence costs and the cost of any award made. As a member plotholder you would be protected both at your allotment plot and also if you attend shows / events which are allotment related.
What action needs to be taken?
To ensure all members benefit from the NAS scheme, allotment associations need to ensure they have names, addresses and email addresses of all plotholders who have paid their £3 fees for NAS Membership.
Plotholders can only take advantage of this excellent scheme if they are members. However, recognising the benefits, Associations may wish to let all their members know about NAS membership.
Each association will need to provide details of all their plotholders. This is achieved by filling in a template in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, provided by the NAS. This action complies with the new GDPR Data Protection Legislation, which came into force in May 2018.
You might ask how an individual could enjoy this benefit when the local association buys insurance. Unfortunately there are a number of situations where members cannot rely on that assumption. Here are a few examples:
1. Perhaps the club insurance was not renewed but you were not told
2. You are away from your local club when the accident took place so the club insurance would not respond
3. You might have caused an accident that could not be blamed on your local club. For example:
• you may have operated a lawnmower over
gravel, causing stones to fly up
• the head of your axe flew off unexpectedly
• Either of these situations could cause an injury
or damage to property and could result in you being sued.
Contact NAS 01536 266576 or view the NAS Website www.nsalg.org.uk for further details.
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