Defective Wording Does Not Remove Liability

When a document contains errors, the court will often act to ensure that commercial common sense dictates its interpretation.

In a recent case, a farmer sought to avoid an estate rentcharge for roads and sewers on the farm estate when the covenants in the land transfer documents contained errors and omissions.

Concluding that the rentcharge was not intended to yield a profit but merely to allocate the costs to the occupier of the land, the court ruled that the documents had to be construed to give effect to the ‘missing covenant’.

The decision was also influenced by case law, which provides that a person who takes the benefit of a deed cannot avoid a burden which attaches to it.