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Aah, the relief!
This article was written by Geoffrey Crill.
Newcomers to Jersey’s unique property law and conveyancing system, whether they are people used to dealing with property in other jurisdictions or young local first-time buyers, have to get to grips with a number of local peculiarities (quite apart from the nearly-French language used in the conveyance itself) if they are to do anything more than nod blankly as the terms of their contract are explained to them. They try valiantly to cope with the concepts of flying freeholds, those threatening-sounding dominant tenements and the seemingly endless covenants prohibiting the keeping of poultry or operating a forge.
But the one aspect of a Jersey conveyance which is guaranteed to make the most experienced property dealer glaze over is the mention of a “relief”. “A what?” asks the baffled client. “A relief” (pronounced RELLYEFF) replies the lawyer/conveyancing clerk, slightly smugly, knowing that in the one small enclave of property knowledge, his total superiority will remain assured.
Presuming this strange expression to be a French word (a presumption based more on the word’s obvious foreign-ness than any semblance of a French accent on the part of the lawyer/conveyancer), the hapless client asks what that means. “It means an offset”, replies our man of letters, with a hint of impatience conjuring up visions of something not quite where it should be, a bit lop-sided even. Not wishing to appear dumb or pushy, the client feigns understanding, and the lawyer moves further into the catalogue of drainage rights and height restrictions that make up the client’s contract. So what is this “relief”? We should, after all, know one when we see one, as there’re very common. In fact, every wall, building, bank or hedge is pretty much assumed to have one. It will generally be described as a strip of land of 18 inches in width adjacent to a boundary wall, building, bank or hedge which is a dependence of that boundary for the purpose of its maintenance. So a property may be described as having the ownership of “le mur et relief”, which suggests that the property owner owns the wall and also a strip of land 18 inches wide on the far side of the wall.
But that would not be quite correct, as the “relief” does not refer to the ownership of the strip of land itself. It is rather a restrictive covenant over the 18 inches of the neighbour’s land adjacent to the wall which prevents the neighbour from exercising the normal rights of ownership over it, and which would otherwise have prevented the owner of the wall from exercising his right of uninterrupted access to the strip of land for the purpose of maintaining or rebuilding his wall.
That means that the neighbour can put a flowerbed on the 18 inch strip, because it’s his land – provided of course that he’s happy to take the risk of having his prize dahlias trampled on by the owner of the wall when he wants to maintain it. The owner of the wall – the owner of the “relief” – can’t plant flowers in the strip because he doesn’t own it. He only has access rights on it and the power to prevent the owner building on it.
Well, that’s the principle - what about the practice? Let’s assume that the “mur” (the one with the “relief”) is 8 feet high and extends along the whole length of the property. How does the owner of the wall actually use the “relief”? Can he knock on his neighbour’s door and demand access across the property so he can get to the “relief”? No, he must access the “relief” from his own property.But that does not mean that he can put a gate in his wall in order to gain direct access to the “relief”.If he were to do that, then he would be creating an opening, and any opening must be at least 3 feet from the neighbouring property. So, strictly, the only way he can gain access to the “relief” is by climbing over the wall.
The neighbour, meanwhile, wants to build on his property. He knows the boundary wall belongs to his neighbour and that it has an 18 inch “relief”. He presumes, therefore, that he can build to within 18 inches of the wall, but that would be a costly mistake. Any building that he constructs, indeed any wall or structure of any kind, must have its own “relief”, so he must keep it 18 inches back, not from the wall, but from the edge of the 18 inch strip, so that his building is at least 3 feet away from the neighbour’s wall. This “relief” (of the new building) is not quite the same as the “relief” of the wall as the neighbour has no rights or interest in it – merely the benefit of the servitude preventing anything being established closer than 3 feet from his wall.
And don’t forget that point about openings – if the new building has any opening in it, then that opening must be at least 3 feet (not just 18 inches) back. What constitutes an “opening”? A window, obviously (unless it’s non-opening and in opaque glass, in which case it isn’t a window) but, less obviously, such things as air-bricks, balcony railings, boiler flues and overflow pipes have also been regarded by some practitioners as “openings” for this purpose.
Although the “relief” is established by custom, it may also arise by agreement when the boundary between two properties is established. It is common practice these days for an owner to grant access rights over his property to enable his neighbour to maintain his building, wall, etc. Such rights are generally of unspecified dimensions and would give the neighbour access by the most convenient route and with machinery, etc. The owner may, however, wish to limit the scope of the access, or the owner of the building or wall may wish to limit more strictly the use of the land immediately adjacent to his building or wall.Consequently the parties may agree that the building or wall shall have a “relief”, but of an agreed width, rather than the customary 18 inches. Likewise, the parties may agree that a boundary shall have no “relief”, which would mean that the owner of the boundary would have no access for maintenance, but it would still mean that the neighbour must keep his own building back at least 18 inches.
So, just to check you’ve followed all that, let’s take some permutations, using a wall separating properties of A and B.
1. The wall belongs to A, “avec relief”. A owns the wall, and can build up to its outside face (no openings, mind!) and B must keep his building at least 3 feet back from the wall.
2. The wall belongs to A, “sans relief” – without “relief”. A can still build up to the outside face of his wall, but B need only keep his building back at least 18 inches from it.
3. The wall is party-owned. Each owner may build up to the centre of the wall.
To make life interesting, let’s assume the boundary is not a wall but boundary stones. If they are described as party-owned “sans relief”, then, as with the party wall, either owner can build up to the centre line. Some practitioners may say that if the owner does not build up to the centre line he must keep his building back 18 inches, and while that argument is supported by logic, it is an argument which is largely ignored, probably because of the value of the land which would be wasted. But if the boundary stones are described merely as being party-owned (as used frequently to be the case) then both owners had to keep back at least 18 inches from the centre of the stones, leaving the stones standing proudly within a 3 feet wide no-go area.
So there it is, the humble, yet all-powerful “relief” explained in a nutshell. One other thing to remember. All those inches are Jersey inches, not English ones, which are quite a different thing altogether. I wouldn’t want you to get confused!
THIS ARTICLE IS FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT BY WAY OF LEGAL ADVICE. PROFESSIONAL LEGAL ADVICE SHOULD BE SOUGHT BEFORE ANY ACTION IS TAKEN.