Landscape Law for the Specifier and Builder: Legal Awareness for Designers and Contractors
Landscape Law for the Specifier and Builder is a new Paving Site article series created for garden designers, specifiers, landscape contractors and professionals involved in the design and construction of outdoor spaces. The series explores the legal, contractual and compliance issues that sit behind landscaping projects, helping the industry better understand responsibility, risk and decision making before disputes arise.
There is plenty of advice available about how to design and build gardens from practical techniques and construction methods. Much less information is available about the legal framework that sits behind them, with designers and contractors only encountering it once something has gone wrong, and they receive a solicitor’s letter and expert witness report.
This series of articles is produced for designers, specifiers and landscape contractors, especially those who are actively involved on site during building operations, with the aim of providing the landscape industry with a set of information sheets, produced in a consistent style, outlining the topic and providing relevant information and examples of cases of claims.
The number of topics is extensive, and to provide the reader with a framework and progression, they will be released in the following order. They are not intended to be comprehensive in nature, but to offer an insight into the interface between design, build and responsibility.
Professional Liability
- Negligence.
- Duty of Care.
- Reasonable skill and care.
- Reliance on manufacturers.
- Reliance on British Standards.
- Professional indemnity insurance.
- Statutory nuisance.
Surface Water
- Permeable paving regulations.
- The legal use of soakaways.
- SUDS principles for domestic gardens.
- Discharging into surface water drains.
- Connecting to foul drains.
- Crossfalls and longitudinal falls.
- Channel drains.
- Flooding neighbouring property.
Levels and Thresholds
- Damp-proof courses and paving levels.
- Threshold detailing around bifold doors.
- Gravel margins.
- Linear drainage.
- Raised patios against buildings.
- Decking adjacent to buildings.
Planning Laws
- When planning permission is required.
- Permitted development rights.
- Conservation areas.
- Listed buildings.
- Tree preservation orders.
- Front paving rules.
- Hard surfacing and run-off legislation.
Boundary Law
- Rights of access.
- Party wall considerations.
- Boundary walls and fences.
- Shared driveways.
Health and Safety
- Duties of domestic clients.
- Designer responsibilities.
- Principal designer.
- Principal contractor.
- ·Temporary works.
- Site security including excavations.
For a fuller explanation of how CDM applies to domestic landscaping projects, read our guide to CDM 2015 for landscaping.
Contracts
- Scope of works.
- Variations.
- Practical completion.
- Waivers.
- Retention.
- Warranties.
- Consumer Rights Act.
- Limitation periods.
- Defects liability.
- Product substitutions and specification changes.
The risks can become more complicated when a client changes the agreed project hierarchy. We cover this in more detail in our article on what happens when the customer takes over a project.
These will all be presented as blocks of information, outlining each topic and relating it to a given circumstance, with examples offered where appropriate. These will be made from the perspective of an expert witness, relating to projects and cases.
In order to provide the reader with more information on specific topics that are largely overlooked, yet form part of a surprising number of disputes, an initial list will include:
- Inspection chambers in paving.
- Utility covers and their security.
- Gas meter clearances.
- Air bricks.
- Service ducts.
- Expansion joints.
- Edge restraints.
- Wheelchair access.
- Installation of lighting cables.
- Garden offices and buildings.
- Fire pits adjacent to buildings.
- Outdoor kitchens.
- Retaining wall heights.
- Fence height planning rules.
British Standards will be referenced where appropriate, along with any relevant legislation referencing Acts such as The Defective Premises Act 1972, Building Act 1984, Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 and looking at other important legal matters such as The Consumer Credit Act 1974 (especially Section 75).
The articles are written from the perspective of more than thirty years of experience investigating disputes and preparing reports for use in court, and are intended as a guide only. They are produced to promote better decision making at the drawing board and on site, raising risk awareness rather than provide definitive legal advice.
