ABSTRACT

If the purpose of compensation is to put a person, who has some interest in land acquired from him, in the same position, financially, had his interest not been compulsorily acquired, then in many cases compensation for the market value of the land will not achieve this. For not only must the expropriated owner buy another house, land or premises, but he will have to remove himself, and if he is in some business, he may lose customers, temporarily or permanently. Rule (6) of section 5 of the Land Compensation Act 1961 provides: ‘The provisions of rule (2) shall not affect the assessment of compensation for disturbance or any other matter not directly based on the value of land.’ As the Court of Appeal made clear in Ryde International plc v London Regional Transport (No 2) [2004], the purpose of the words of rule (6) was to avoid an overlap with rule (2), and they do not impose a limitation more restrictive than that for disturbance compensation generally: see also Bishopsgate Parking (No 2) Ltd v Welsh Ministers [2012]. Rule (6) has two limbs, disturbance, and other matters not directly based on the value of land. In earlier editions, this chapter was primarily concerned with the first of these two limbs: the claim for disturbance. But disturbance is relevant only to persons disturbed from possession; investment owners and others not in possession may also suffer losses and expenses. Increasingly the Lands Tribunal has come to accept that such losses and expenses may be recoverable under rule (6) as ‘other matters’. Accordingly, many of the matters discussed in this chapter are as relevant to these ‘other matters’ as to disturbance in its original meaning. Underlying the claim for disturbance and other matters is the principle of equivalence or fair compensation. Certain peculiar features of other matters, which are compensatable under the second limb of rule (6), are considered at the end of this chapter and also in Chapter 18.