In a regal London courtroom, Lord George Leggatt, the lead judge in the ruling, said that “hundreds of thousands of visitors each year” headed to the platform and many took photographs of the apartments.
“It is not difficult to imagine how oppressive living in such circumstances would feel for any ordinary person — much like being on display in a zoo,” he said....
The ruling, which has been eagerly awaited since a two-day hearing in December 2021, overturned two lower-court decisions. In 2019, Justice Anthony Mann of the English High Court wrote that the properties in the four-tower development called Neo Bankside were architecturally impressive, but that buying properties with floor-to-ceiling windows had “a price in terms of privacy.”
If you don't want people looking in your windows, don't have windows. I mean, put up blinds. But, no, that was the overturned lower-court position. Somehow, the rich have won again. They want their windows AND people not looking in.
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I've been up there, dunno, fifteen times? Only once was it both light and clear enough to have a chance to look in. And most of the windows had reflective coatings on them.
People worry about silly stuff. But it's a rich area so.....
-XC
There's always been a line between legal just looking and illegal voyeurism. That line has generally been about whether special equipment is needed. If you prance in front of your window such that anybody walking down the street can see what you are up to, that's on you. But if someone comes up to your window, or uses high-powered binoculars to see the details of your home, that's on them.
If I'm 10 floors up, I have a reasonable expectation of privacy no matter how big my windows are. Sure, the 10th floor neighbor across the street will have some access to me, as I do to him, but if that neighbor has thousands of guests at the window every minute of every day staring into my home, that is not a reasonable consequence of me having big windows.
The court ruled correctly.
People who live in glass houses should not throw lawsuits.
"They want their windows AND people not looking in."
Actually, some want their windows AND people looking in. Brits are kinky. When they're not 'not having sex' (no sex please...they're British) they're getting up to some wild stuff.
The world-class perversion Japanese don't have anything on Merry Ol' England.
I can imagine if you bought your place before the viewing area went up, you'd be very unhappy about it.
Seems more like invasion of privacy than nuisance. But the US common law began diverging from the King’s common law awhile ago.
Gail Wynand in 'The Fountainhead' [the book] had similar problem with his love-pad.
IIRC - in an opposite way
solution === Why not TATE build a higher level viewing room? a different line of sight
@Kevin - The Tate Modern is in an old power station started/finished in WWII. I went to the museum after opening around Y2K and loved it. Each time I go to London I make a big effort to see what's new at the Tate.
The viewing platform is newer, obviously (lemmie check, 2016). So a fair few people were probably surprised.
-XC
Here's a thought puzzle..
What if, instead of 10 floors up, the people had a Tall fence?
What if, the Other people, built a viewing platform on top of their building, so they could CHARGE Other people to go up and look over the fence?
Still think the same?
What if, instead of fence people's lifes.. the platform people wanted to watch The Cubs (lose again)?
This is Settled Law, in Illinois
The museum should win. The homeowners' property rights end at the property lines. Giving them a veto over another property's building is a taking.
Not that it should affect the legal outcome, but I believe part of the offense felt by the apartment-owners was when the head of the Tate Modern responded to their complaint by saying that they should "put up net curtains".
A common UK thing, net curtains are really a semi-sheer voile, and will let in quite a lot of light while (like mirror film on glass) only allow sort-of-transparency from the darker side to the brighter side. So in daylight on non-dark days they offer privacy, but obscure the residents' view in the process.
They're also very much considered a grandmotherly style of interior decor -- so here is the director of a modern art museum, telling owners of architecturally - interesting modern apartments that they should redecorate in twee style if they don't like his viewing platform.
@tim maguire, there should be no different expectation if you and your neighbor are at ground level. If such a neighbor were legally allowed to invite thousands of guests through their ground level establishment, they shouldn’t be restricted from allowing them to look out their windows onto your property just because you wanted floor to ceiling windows without curtains.
An old story that includes a photo ...
Tate Modern wins privacy case brought by owners of £4m flats
The Guardian
I can see the apartment dwellers' point of view ...
Does she want the attention? Ambiguous voyeuristic photos for sure. Daily Mail.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3772646/You-ve-exhibition-Neighbours-fury-new-observation-deck-Tate-Modern-art-gallery-lets-visitors-peer-luxury-flats.html
The building has a rather transparent design. IMO the buyers should have expected this.
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-modern-apartment-block-overlooked-from-the-new-tate-modern-extension-111425585.html
Some actual common sense from one of the judges quoted in the article: Later, the Court of Appeal also dismissed the apartment owners’ complaint, saying that this was a case of one property overlooking another and could not be considered a nuisance. “The law does not always provide a remedy for every annoyance to a neighbor, however considerable that annoyance may be,” it said.
I can only imagine the chaos if complaints like this were considered in NYC, where practically every commercial or residential building looks onto a nearby apartment building. That's life in the big city. Draw your curtains at night or just deal with it.
These people also need to understand the Coase Theorem.
@Douglass - I had not heard the net curtains. I'm sure the director was fully aware of the class aspects of what he was suggesting. Man, pass the popcorn.
"Airspace" and "view" laws vary by state in the US, though I'm sure that's not true in Britain. My sister's apartment has no direct overlook, though there is a very tall office building going up within 1/4 mile of her balcony. Overlook, barely, but only during the day. So legal, apparently. Fascinating.
-XC
Somehow, the rich have won again.
There's an entire subclass of 'the rich' what see real estate as a blood sport and employ many a law school graduate to stack the deck in their favor for such matters.
Oh, barristers then. Fine.
If you live in a city, you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy from others with apartments or terraces near your windows. I am curious who was there first. If it as the Tate then there is even less to complain about.
If you built your house, windows and all, prior to there being a platform to look in your windows, do you not have a say in it? At the same time, the way you build on your property is up to you.
Property rights are a bit different in the UK, though.
Regardless, when you have people in close proximity, you get all sorts of problems, a lot of which are not amicably solvable.
Don’t blame us. Lawyers told by a client to do something will always file a legal action. That’s what we do. And if we’re really good at it we will win a few. These lawyers tried the hell out of their case. Good work.
Kylos said...
@tim maguire, there should be no different expectation if you and your neighbor are at ground level. If such a neighbor were legally allowed to invite thousands of guests through their ground level establishment, they shouldn’t be restricted from allowing them to look out their windows onto your property just because you wanted floor to ceiling windows without curtains.
Disagree. "If" is doing an awful lot of work in that hypothetical. And it's absurd to posit that the expectation on the ground floor is no different than the expectation on the 10th floor. Of course it's different.
I can only imagine the chaos if complaints like this were considered in NYC, where practically every commercial or residential building looks onto a nearby apartment building.
It's one thing to have neighbors looking in.
Quite another to have a major tourist attraction direct people to look into your windows while they take pictures.
So, they have discarded the last reason to visit the Tate?
The last time I visited the Tate, a urinal from 1914 was being promoted as *art*.
If you live in a city, you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy from others with apartments or terraces near your windows.
Even if you're a murderer, as we learned in "Rear Window."
How did the apartment owners know that people over at the Tate viewing platform could see them? Oh - you mean they were looking from their apartments over at the Tate folks? The gall!!
I suspect the apartment dwellers are very happy to say they live next to the Tate. That was likely a selling point.
Wasn't the idea of random peeping in neighbors' windows the whole idea behind "Rear Window"?
Gawkers.
In flyover country we have an innovation called curtains. I have nearly floor-to-ceiling windows on one side of my house, and when I don't want people looking in, I use this curtain technology to prevent them from doing it.
“ 'It is not difficult to imagine how oppressive living in such circumstances would feel for any ordinary person — much like being on display in a zoo,' he said...."
That sounds exactly like some edgy modern art to me -- even more so if the live subjects aren't consenting.
I think it's no coincidence that they named the building Neo Bankside ("neo-Banksy"?).
"Now there’s a wall between us, somethin’ there’s been lost
I took too much for granted, got my signals crossed"
How about just moving the viewing platform?
If the view was into public housing, the media would be outraged. Invasion of privacy!
About ten years ago I spent a night in a downtown NYC rent-controlled hi-rise for "artists" and other pretentious rent-seekers ,hangers-on and tit suckers.
Out on the balcony about ten floors up, you could look directly up the street to Times Square.
Look in a different direction and you could gaze in at least 4 floors of apartments in a building next door. Kitchens, dining rooms, bedrooms...it was all there on view.
And, of course, that view extended all the way down to 2nd floor level.
I never heard of any complaints, but maybe New Yawkers are a tougher breed:
"Wanna see my O-face? Get out yer binoculars!!"
The windows just need a mirror film applied to the outside, and the Tate should pay for it.
If the "Modern Art" didn't suck, there wouldn't be an issue. People would look at the art.
Looking at the geometry, it wouldn't be difficult to have a screen of vertically polarized glass on the viewing platform, with horizontally polarized film applied to the apartment windows (or vice versa). This would block view into the apartments and would not affect the open-air feeling of the platform much at all -- as the space above the 2M tall screens would still be open air, and the view of everything other than the interior of the apartments across would still be transparent.
Looking at the internet-archive history of the viewing platform's webpage, it looks like it has been open very little since the tragic incident in 2019. I wonder if the museum would really prefer that they be forced to close it?
The 6-year old boy from the French tourist family who was thrown from the platform seems to have long-term issues with sight, mental-function, and mobility as a result of his injuries.
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