Jeremy's Blog 15th September 2023: The Purpose of Dispute Resolution
This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 15th September 2023
The end of September brings Michaelmas, for perhaps half the tenancies in England and Wales a key point, whether for rent review or termination. Its longstanding place in the agricultural calendar is shown by the persistence of the old Michaelmas date of 10th October with continuity from before the UK changed its calendar in 1752, alongside new Michaelmas on 29th September.
Tenancies will start and tenancies will end with such a term date. The operation of law and agreements make it a trigger for crystallising whether there are issues, especially over rent, between landlord and tenant and for acting on them. With tenancies ending, tenants may make claims for end of tenancy compensation, for items from soil improvers, fertilisers and acts of husbandry to tenant’s long term improvements. Landlords may make claims for dilapidations.
All such issues are matters for the parties to negotiate but the law (and, for FBTs, also the agreement) provides a longstop for how matters are to be settled when they cannot agree, generally allowing either party to refer the issue to arbitration. That focuses attention on dispute resolution and the CAAV’s Facilitating Dispute Resolution service. For agricultural tenancies in England and Wales that includes the CAAV President’s statutory position as an appointer of arbitrators on the application of either party – appointments can be requested using the form on this website page.
Ideally and whether a tenancy matter or any other issue, it should be settled by good negotiation, started in good time and aided by parties understanding the issues. That can be helped by taking the issue or sticking point to a fresh eye for an informal view – early neutral evaluation. However, people can have differences or disputes that, for whatever reason, prove to need dispute resolution.
The purpose of dispute resolution, whatever the method, is to give the parties an answer so they can carry on with their lives and businesses and have one less uncertainty to handle in making the next necessary decisions. In the theme of “justice delayed is justice denied”, there is no merit in disputes being longer or more costly than they have to be. There is a cost to indecision as well as in litigation, a cost to having lives and businesses on hold for ages.
All too often discussion of dispute resolution goes straight to issues of process and detail, overlooking that essential purpose. The process is then necessary as the means to deliver the purpose. As s.1 opens the Arbitration Act:
“the object of arbitration is to obtain the fair resolution of disputes by an impartial tribunal without unnecessary delay or expense”.
The process is then to be tailored to the case to achieve the purpose. That includes actions for cost control, all with eye to the central purpose.
The message about good dispute resolution is the subject of the CAAV’s coming Facilitating Dispute Resolution Training Day near the NEC on 26th September. This is at least as much for those acting for parties as is it for dispute resolvers – with roles in advising clients, as expert witnesses or advocates.
With that in mind, the CAAV is this week issuing a guide to using the CAAV dispute resolution service, being sent to all members with the News Letter, available more widely and supported by a podcast.
Good dispute resolution is an essential part of business life. Members drafting contracts and dispute resolution clauses can provide for dispute appointments to be made by the CAAV, acting as it is here to offer this service to the whole rural economy.