The Rights of Light Protocol: A Guide for Adjoining Owners

In December 2023, Jonathan Karas KC and Paul Tonkin of Hogan Lovells published the Protocol for Disputes relating to Rights of Light. Within six months, the RICS had built it into the third edition of its Rights of Light professional standard, effective from 1 June 2024. That makes it the closest thing this field has to an agreed rulebook for how developers and their neighbours should deal with each other before anyone goes near a court.

Almost everything written about it since has been written for developers. That's understandable. The Protocol grew out of a developer's problem: how to deal with rights of light early enough that they don't derail a scheme. But half the people it applies to sit on the other side of the boundary. If a development is planned near your property and your light is at stake, the Protocol matters just as much to you.

Here's what it says when you read it from your side.

What the Protocol is, and what it isn't

The Protocol is voluntary. It isn't one of the formal pre-action protocols under the Civil Procedure Rules, so there's no automatic penalty for ignoring it. What it is, is a published benchmark of reasonable behaviour, drafted by two of the leading names in this area and now sitting inside the professional standard that RICS registered rights of light surveyors work to.

That last point matters more than it sounds. Courts expect parties to behave reasonably before litigation, and the developer's own surveyor is almost certainly working to the standard that contains this Protocol. A developer who follows it looks reasonable. A developer who ignores it has some explaining to do. As a neighbour, you can hold the other side to rules their own profession adopted.

You don't have to wait to be approached

The Protocol's best provision for neighbours sits quietly at paragraph 2.3. Most people assume the developer makes the first move, and that a neighbour who writes first is being premature or difficult. Paragraph 2.3 says the opposite. Where a neighbour believes a development may infringe their rights of light and nobody has been in touch, the neighbour may write first. It even sets out what that letter should contain, from evidence of the right through to a request for the developer's surveyor's contact details.

The developer should then respond within 21 days (paragraph 2.4). If they believe no right will be infringed, they should say so, explain why, and provide evidence. Approaching a developer isn't aggression. It's the process working as designed. (If the developer has written to you first, we've covered what that letter means and what to do separately.)

Silence is also harder to justify than it used to be. Developers sometimes stay quiet because a rights of light insurance policy sits behind the scheme. The Protocol's own guidance note (paragraph 3.2) points out that while older policies discouraged contact with neighbours, modern policies tend to require active engagement. If a developer won't respond, that's increasingly a choice, not a constraint, and there are commercial reasons that silence suits everyone but you.

The developer should pay for your surveyor's advice

Paragraphs 2.1(g) and 2.3(e) both confirm the same principle: the developer should meet your reasonable fees for taking advice from a rights of light surveyor, up to a capped amount agreed between the surveyors. Paragraph 3.1(b) adds that the developer should confirm this by a solicitor's undertaking if you ask. Ask.

It's a genuinely useful provision, and worth understanding precisely. It covers advice. It puts a qualified surveyor in your corner at the developer's expense so you can understand your technical position. What it doesn't cover is the pursuit of a claim: the full rights of light analysis, the solicitors, counsel, court fees, or the risk of paying the developer's costs if a claim fails. And it only arises at all if the developer engages. The capped fee is a door opener, not a war chest. Remember, too, that a survey by itself doesn't make a developer pay anything. Evidence identifies a claim. Leverage settles it.

You're not obliged to negotiate

Paragraph 7.2 of the guidance note is short, easy to miss, and possibly the most important paragraph on the page for a neighbour. It confirms that an adjoining owner isn't required to enter into financial negotiations at all, and is entitled to maintain the position that they simply don't want their light interfered with.

That matters because your strongest position in any rights of light matter is the one you hold before you've named a price. Rights of light are property rights. In the right circumstances a court can order a development to be redesigned, cut back, or stopped, and the framework courts use when choosing between an injunction and damages is precisely why developers and their funders take these claims seriously. That's why they settle. The Protocol protects your right to stand on that ground for as long as it serves you.

A letter of claim can go in at any time

Reading the Protocol's stages in order, you might assume they're a queue: introductory letters, then inspections, then surveyor meetings, and only then anything formal. The guidance note (paragraph 5.3) removes that assumption. Either party may issue a formal letter of claim setting out its position at any time. The staged process is a route to settlement, not a waiting room, and nothing in it prevents a neighbour from formally protecting their position early. Where the light loss is serious, early formal protection is often exactly the right move. We've explained what the court process actually involves if a claim ever needs to go the distance. Most never do.

Four things to watch

The clock. Add up the Protocol's timescales. Twenty-one days here, fourteen there, twenty-eight for a response to a letter of claim. Followed in full, the process can absorb months. Nothing in the Protocol requires a developer to pause works while it runs, or even to tell you when construction will start. And your position changes once a building is finished, which is why acting mid-construction is often the strongest position you'll ever hold. Engage early, and treat any reluctance to confirm the construction programme as a signal, not a detail.

The first number. Paragraph 4.2 encourages the surveyors to agree the technical light loss on the traditional Waldram basis, and a "book value" figure for that loss. That's a sensible technical step, but book value is a reference point, not what claims are actually worth. Settlements in this field are routinely agreed well above book figures, because what a neighbour is really releasing is a property right standing in the way of a profitable scheme. Don't let the first number on the table become the last.

The information flow. Under paragraph 3.2, the developer's surveyor can request your room layouts, title documents, and details of any tenancies. Between two professionally represented parties, that's fair and sensible. But notice what it means if you're the only person in the process without advice: you'd be supplying the inputs the other side uses to value your claim, while title issues you don't know about surface at the worst possible moment. The Protocol assumes throughout that both sides are represented (paragraph 1.3, and section 2 of the guidance note). It was never designed to be navigated alone.

The section 203 blind spot. The Protocol says nothing about section 203 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016, the mechanism that lets certain schemes on land appropriated by a local authority proceed despite rights of light. A developer can follow the Protocol to the letter while pursuing that route in parallel. If a council's name appears anywhere near the scheme, understand the section 203 position early.

The question the Protocol doesn't answer

Which brings us to the gap. The Protocol says the developer should fund your initial advice, capped and agreed. It assumes you'll be professionally represented from there. It never says how. (What genuine no win, no fee funding looks like is a subject in itself.)

For a corporate neighbour with property lawyers on retainer, that's fine. For most homeowners, leaseholders and small businesses, it's the entire problem. A rights of light claim done properly needs a specialist surveyor, a detailed Waldram analysis, experienced property litigation solicitors, often a barrister, and the financial resilience to see it through. The Protocol builds a fair process on the assumption that you can afford to take part in it.

Where Daylight Protect comes in

That gap is exactly what Daylight Protect exists to close. We facilitate every element of a rights of light claim for adjoining owners: the specialist surveyors and their analysis, specialist property litigation firms, the barristers, and the court costs, all through a fully funded solution. Legal insurance sits behind every claim, so there's no risk of paying the developer's costs. And it's all on a no recovery, no fee basis. If the claim doesn't succeed, you pay nothing either way.

It changes how the Protocol works for you, too. An introductory letter under paragraph 2.3 reads very differently to a developer when it arrives from a neighbour with a fully funded claim and a specialist team behind it. The Protocol gives you the process. Funding and expertise are what give the process teeth.

If a development near your property has planning consent, or is already on site, the right time to understand your position is now, while every option is still open. Start a claim or call 0800 955 4448 for a no obligation conversation about where you stand.

About the author

Joshua Platt BSc (Hons) MRICS is the Founder and Director of Daylight Protect. A chartered surveyor with a background in land and development, he set up Daylight Protect to give homeowners and businesses access to fully funded rights of light claims.

This article is commentary, not legal advice. Rights of light disputes involve complex legal and technical issues, and the Protocol itself says specialist advice should be sought. We agree.

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