Fight for the light

摘要

Rights to light are sensitive. Developers are unwilling to talk about them, or to allow their architects to discuss the constraints of designing around them. 'It is a painful subject,' says Gordon Ingram, head of one of the largest rights to light consultants, Gordon Ingram Associates. 'I have seen many cases, many, where millions are paid.' At the most basic level, right to light is secured after 20 years' enjoyment of the right. It can be inherited from previous buildings on a site. As a genuine right, 'absolute and indefeasible' in the words of the 1832 Prescription Act, it is not subject to planning. Instead, any cut in the right to light has to be agreed between neighbours. This makes it a process of delicate negotiation, sometimes ending in court. So it is also subject to the twists and turns of case law.