Edward F Cousins BL

Edward Cousins is a practising Barrister and an accredited Mediator at Radcliffe Chambers. He was previously the Principal Judge of the Land Registration Division of the Property Chamber in England and Wales. Until recently Edward was also a part-time Senior Planning Inspector in England and Wales specialising in commons and greens, rights of way and coastal access. He is a specialist property and planning lawyer, with expertise in land issues relating to

• compulsory purchase;
• easements;
• land registration;
• manorial rights;
• markets and fairs;
• street/ casual trading;
• mines and minerals;
• mortgage law;
• planning law and planning policy;
• restrictive covenants and easements;
• the law of landlord and tenant, both business and residential.

Edward has held a number of significant judicial roles since his appointment to the part-time post of Chief Commons Commissioner in 2002 which role continued until 2008 when the post was abolished following the enactment of the Commons Act 2006.

In September 2003 he was appointed by the Lord Chancellor to the newly created salaried full-time judicial role of Adjudicator to HM Land Registry established under the Land Registration Act 2002. As Adjudicator he dealt with land registration applications directed to disputes over issues of title. These involved the consideration of areas of land law ranging from beneficial interests and rights of way cases, boundary disputes and adverse possession claims.

In 2013, he was appointed as the Principal Judge of the Land Registration Division of the Property Chamber, following the integration of the jurisdiction into the Property Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal. In October 2014 he vacated his role as Principal Judge, since when he continued to sit for several years as a fee-paid judge in various part-time judicial roles.

In 2016 Edward was appointed to the Panel of NPIERS as an Examiner, since when he has conducted many examinations of neighbourhood plans. He is also qualified as a non-statutory Inspector and has been retained in that role on a number of town and village green inquiries. Edward has acted in a number of property mediations and matters involving early neutral evaluation and other aspects of ADR.

In December 2019 Edward was appointed to the role of a Senior Planning Inspector specialising in the fields of commons and greens, rights of way and coastal access, and planning policy. He has recently vacated this role.

Edward is also a member of the Property Bar Association and an associate member of Institute of Public Rights of Way and Access Management (IPROW).

Recent advisory work includes advising:

• private clients and local authorities on land registration title issues
• private clients and local authorities on rights of common, and town and village green issues
• market authorities on the removal of markets, the preservation of market rights and the disposal of market sites
• private clients and local authorities on Street Trading issues
• private clients and local authorities on the true interpretation and effect of Charter Rights granted by the Crown and the interplay between local Acts of Parliament and franchise rights
• private clients on Lordships of the Manor and Manorial Rights issues
• private clients on Hereditary Titles and succession issues
• private clients and local authorities on boundary disputes, ransom strip issues, easements, and restrictive covenants
• Advising on various aspects of mortgage law

Specific Examples

Market Law issues: –

• Instructions from the Corporation of London on two issues relating to Smithfield Market and its wholesale removal to a new purpose-built site in Barking. The first issue was directed to the City Corporation’s Smithfield Charter Rights and whether this imposed any restrictions on the Smithfield Site which would have restricted its removal. It also involved the future use of the site in Smithfield for other activities, such as the use of the Poultry Market for occupation by the Museum of London. Secondly, Land Registration issues which might have posed problems on registration – much of the Smithfield site remains unregistered.

• Subsequent Instructions to advise on the wording of the draft Proposed City of London (Markets) Bill to be laid before the UK Parliament relating to the proposed relocation of all three markets owned and operated by the City Corporation to the Barking site.

• Other Market Law examples relate to the desire on the part of many local market authorities to renovate and modernise their market operations by closing down such operations on a temporary basis, renovating the market sites and then (in most cases) facilitating the return of the market operations in accordance with their Market Rights. By reason of the fact that many of these market authorities are severely restricted by cash-flow considerations, such aims, and ambitions, can often only be achieved with the assistance of developers. This approach can therefore raise quite tricky aspects with regard to the retention and non-dissipation of a market authority’s market rights. Recent examples of such advisory work relate to instructions received from Cambridge City Council, Nottingham City Council, Kirklees MBC, and Wigan MBC.

• As and when requested, providing advice to the National Association of British Market Authorities (‘NAMBA’) on market issues.

Common and Greens Issues

Advisory work on commons and greens such as de-registration and exchange of common land; the possible unlawful appropriation of a part of common land for a school extension and its effect on accessibility for the purposes of section 15 of the CROW Act 2000; applications on works on common land under section 38 of the Commons Act 2006, the status of a ‘hefted flock’, and so forth.

Planning

 Neighbourhood Planning – since 2016 I have been on the Panel of RICS/NPIERS as a Neighbourhood Plans Examiner. I have been retained on many occasions to examine Neighbourhood Plans of various degrees of complexity. Two of these Examinations have involved public hearings.

In December 2019 I was appointed as a part-time Senior Planning Inspector. From July 2020 until February2022 I was engaged in specialist planning work, such as commons and greens, rights of way, and costal access issues.

Other Land law issues

• Providing detailed initial advice to an insurance company as to the merits of a professional negligence case concerning a solicitors’ advice on a property dispute
• Providing expert evidence on English mortgage law in a BVI case
• Advising the London Embassy of a Latin American state on its lease renewal

Legal texts

• ‘Pease, Chitty and Cousins – Law of Markets and Fairs,’ with Graham Wilson OBE, November 2020
• ‘Gadsden and Cousins on Commons and Greens,’ Third Edition, Sweet and Maxwell, March 2020
• ‘Cousins on Mortgages,’ Fourth Edition, Sweet and Maxwell, December 2017

Contributions to works of reference include the following:

• an article in the Conveyancer in 2013 on land registration and the registration of manorial and franchise rights
• a chapter in the edited collection of essays published by Hart Publishing in January 2018 entitled ‘New Perspectives on Land Registration: Contemporary Problems and Solutions’. The chapter is called ‘The Land Registration Jurisdiction: An Analysis of the First Twelve Years’
• Consultant Editor Commentary and Precedents for the Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents, Markets and Fairs Vol 26(2)B, Butterworths, September 2019.
• Consultant Editor, Halsbury’s Laws of England, Vol 71, Markets and Fairs, Butterworths, March 2020.

Edward is an accredited civil and commercial mediator with ADR Group. He has been retained in a number of property mediations and has extensive experience in mediation having mediated many land law issues over the last few years, and matters involving early neutral evaluation and other aspects of ADR. Edward brings a wealth of perspectives to the facilitation of dispute resolution and the determination of disputes. He has recently been placed on the Panel of Mediators for the Boundary Disputes Mediation Service established by the RICS/PLA.

Recent experience includes:

• Mediating a boundary and right of way dispute between a farmer landowner who owned a right of way and who had blocked one of two entrances to a driveway to a house on the pretext that there was an excessive use of the right of way by the house-owner
• Mediating a boundary and right of way dispute between the owners of a right of way who objected to a house owner opening up a new entrance to his house over the verge over which there was said to be no right of way
• Mediating a family dispute over the ownership of various parcels of land following the death of both parents which involved the interpretation of the will.