Easement Flashcards
(39 cards)
Phipps v Pear [1964]
The court will not allow any new types of negative easement which restricts the burdened landowner’s use of the land.
Dyce v Lady James Hay (1852)
New positive easement can thus be created as long as they are similiar in nature to or can be said to be a development of, others already establised by case law.
Copeland v Greenhalf
Facts: the defendant had used a strip of land belonging to the claimant for 50 years, for the purpose of storing vehicles which were either repaired or awaiting repair.
Held: His claim to an easement over the land failed. His use of land was too extensive to constitute an easement as it had, in effect, deprived te landowner from using his own land entirely.
Principle: Any right the amounts o exclusive possessionn of the. Burdenned property cannot be an easement.
Grisby v Melville [1972] 1 WLR 1355
Facts: The case concerned a claim to use a cellar room underneath the floor of an adjoining property. Access to te cellar was via some stairs, which led down from the benefiting owner’s house. The burdened land owner had no access to the space. Held there was no easement. The benefiting landowner’s use of land was such that it amountted to an exclusive right of user over the whole of the cellar.
Principle: Any rigt that amounts to exclude possession of the burdened property cannot be an easement
London& Bleneim Estates Ltd v LAdbroke Retail Parks Ltd [1992] 1 WLR 1278
A rigt to park a car was held to constitute an easement, provided that the vehicles were not constantly in the same spaces and that they did not interfere with the burdened landowner’s reasonale use of land. If te right had extended to the right to par a car exclusively in the same place 24 hours a day, this would not have been an easement, because it wold ave had the effact of depriving the landowner from using their land altogether.
Batchelor v Marlow (2003) 1WR 764
Facts: a claim to an easement of the right to park six cars on a plot of land between he hours of 9.30a.m and 6.00pm, Monday to Friday, failed on the basis tat the claim was too instrutive on the burdened landowner.
Principle: Any right that deprives the owner of te burdened property of the reasonale use of their property cannot be an esaement.
Dominant and servient tenement
Dominant teneent is the land with the benefits of thhe easement, and the burdened tenement is the land that is burdened by it. Thus with a right of way, the serient tenement would be the land with the path runnin across it and the dominant tenement would be the land with the right to use the path.
Hill v Tupper (1863) 2 H&C 121
A company leased land, adjoining a canal o Hill, giving him the rigt ti use the canal for boat trips. A man who owned a pub nearbyhen decide to rent ot his own boats on the canal for fishing. He tried to sue on the bbasis tat the pub owner wwas interfereing with Hill’s property right. Held: Hill’s rightts in the land could not form an easement, because they did nothing more than confer a personal advantage on him and his business.
Principle: The rigt us accommodate the dominant tenement.
Moody v steggles (1879) 122 ChD 261
Facts: A rigt to hang a sign on neughbouring land hat pointed a pub was held to be a valid easement.
Principle: The rigt must accommodate the dominant tenement.
Bailey v Stephens (182) 12 CB (NS) 91
In order for the righ to accomodate the dominant tenenment, the benefited and burderned land mus also be sufficiently close geographically
Pugh v Savage [1970] 2 QB 373
This doesnt mna the benefited an burdened land must e immediatellyy addjacent to one another.
William Aldred’s Case (1610) 9 Co Rep 57b
Facts: An action was brought against a neighbor for building next to the C’s house. Whlist te C’s right to receive light to thhe property was recognised his rightt to a view was not.
Principle: A right to a view is too vague to constitute an easement.
Where a right is too vague in nature, it cannot constitute an easement.
Browne v Flower [1911] 1 Ch 219
Facts: A landlord had erected an external staircase to a block of flats which passed in between the two bedroom windows of the claimant’s flat. The court was clear in stating that there could be no easement of privacy.
Principle: A rigt of privacy is too vague to constitute an easement.
Regis Property Co Ltd v Redman [1956] 2 QB 612
Facs: a tenantt tried to claim the benefit of an easement against is landlord to supply hot waer to the tenant’s property.
Held: This could not be an easement because it would impose a financial burden on the landlord.
Principle: An easement must not involve a cost to the burdened property.
An easementt canno involve expediture by the burdened property.
S.52 LPA 1925; s1(2) LPA 1925
A legal easement can be expreslyy created by deed for a term equivalen to a freehold, or for a specified term.
Implied grant or reservation
Necessity
Common intention
Wheeldon v Burrows
S.62 LPA 1925
MRA Engineering Ltd v Trimster Co Ltd [1987] 56 P&PC 1
Facts: The existence of an alternative access o the property in the form of a public footpath over neighbouring land wwas held sufficint to prevent a claim to an eeasement of necessity, even though the public footpat did not provide he claimans wiith any vehicuar access.
Principle: any suggestion of another means to the access the properrty will defeat the claim.
Manjan v Dammeh [1990] 61 P&PC 194
Facts: Land objoning a river waas hed to e not landocked and thereforce in iellgitable for a claimin easementof necessity because the reiver was a public highway and although less conviniennt, was therefore a perfectly legitiate access to the property.
Ptinciole: any access however inconvinient will orevent an easement of necessity frombeing granted.
Jones v Pritchard [1908] 1 Ch 630
Facts: Shaed chimneys to apair of semidetached houses were to e capable of use both by partied through easement of. Commonintention.
Principle: he court will imphyy an easement where this was te intention of the parties to grant or reserve an easement over the land when it was sold.
Stafford v Lee
Facts: A developer obtained planning pemmission to buid houses on his land, claiming right over his neighbour’s drive for access to the road. Held he rigt of way as granted. The intention of the pparties when lland was sols was for residential purpose, and so it should be implied that they intended residents to have access to the road.
Principle: The court will imply an easeent where his waas the inntention of the parties to grant ot reserve an easement over the land when it was sold.
Wong v Beaumont Property Trust Ltd [1965] 1 QB 173
Facts: A basement propery was left for use as a restaurant. The tenant covanted in the lease to eliminate cooking smells. In addition, public health regulations required him to install a ventilation system to the premises. The only way the tenant could do this was ventilation ducts attahed to the part of the building retaned by the landlord.
Helld: Common inttention requires that the property was let or sold for a particular purposethat would be impossible to carry out without the beneffit of he easemen in question.
Wheeldon v Burrows
Has effet of turning a quai easement into an easement. A quasi easement is a use of land thaat would become an easementifit was in seperate ownership fro the benefited landowner
If the righ is contnuos and apparent
If te right is necessary and the reasonable enjoyment of the land sold
The right was in use both at the tme of sale and immediately prior to it
Section 62 LPA 1925
When the land occupied by the tenant is subsequently sold to them, or on renewal of their lease.
Wright v Macadam (1949) 2 KB 744
A landlor allowed his tenant to use a coal shed on the landord’s premises. The lease was renewed and nomention was made of the use of the ccoal shed, but the andlord latter tred to claim extra rent for thhe use of it. Held: under s.62 LPA the licence had become an easement of storage
Principle: S.62 upgrrades a licence to an easement wen the the occupied land is subsequently sold to the tenant ot their lease renewed.
