Easements

Question 1

What is an easement?

Answer 1

An easement is a right of one landowner to enjoy limited use of another’s neighbouring land.

Question 2

Why are easements important in land law?

Answer 2

An easement provides access to land that increases the utility, amenity and financial value of the land.

Question 3

Give some examples of easements that are used in everyday life.

Answer 3

• Rights of way
• Right to light
• Rights to drainage
• Rights of water
• Right to park vehicles

Question 4

According to the Land Registry, what percentage of registered freehold titles are subject, to some degree, to easements?

Answer 4

over 65%

Question 5

Is an easement a possessory or a non possessory right?

Answer 5

An easement is a non possessory right.

Question 6

How can an easement be distinguished from a lease?

2 points here

Answer 6

• A lease is a possessory right, an easement is non possessory.
• A lease is ‘temporary ownership’ of someone else’s land and is a recognised legal estate - an easement is an interest in land, not an estate.

Question 7

How might an easement be distinguished from a licence?

Answer 7

• The categories of user recognised as easements are far narrower and more strictly defined than those recognised as licences.
• There are greater formality requirements for the creation of an easement, as opposed to licences, which can arise more informally.
• An easement cannot exist ‘in gross’. This means that it must be tied to ownership of land, rather than being granted in favour of individuals personally. To benefit from a licence, you do not need to own any land.
• Easements are proprietary rights that are capable of binding third parties; licences are personal rights only and are not binding on successors.

Question 8

Are easements binding on third parties and successors?

Answer 8

Yes

Question 9

What are the two plots of land involved in easements called?

Answer 9

These are called the dominant and servient tenements.

Question 10

What is a dominant tenement?

Answer 10

A dominant tenement is the land to which the right is attached. (The land which benefits from the easement.)

Question 11

What is a servient tenement?

Answer 11

The land over which the right is exercised. (The land that is burdened by the easement.)

Question 12

How many requirements are there for a right to constitute an easement?

Answer 12

4

Question 13

In which case were the 4 requirements for a right to qualify as an easement set out?

Answer 13

Re Ellenborough Park (1956)

Question 14

What are the 4 essential characteristics of an easement, laid out in Re Ellenborough Park?

Answer 14

1. There must be a dominant tenement and a servient tenement;
2. An easement must ‘accommodate’ the dominant land;
3. Dominant and servient owners must be different persons;
4. A right over land cannot amount to an easement, unless it is capable of forming the subject matter of a grant.

Question 15

What are the two aspects to the requirement that there must be a dominant and servient tenement as a qualifying factor for an easement?

Answer 15

1. there must be two parcels of land - a dominant and servient tenement.
2. the dominant and servient tenements must be identifiable at the time of the creation of the purported easement.

Question 16

In which case was it explained that an ‘essential element of any easement’ was that the rifht was linked to two parcels of land?

Answer 16

Alfred F. Beckett Ltd v Lyons (1967)

Question 17

Which case confirmed that a dominant and servient tenement must be identifiable at the time an easement is created?

Why is this important?

Answer 17

London & Blenheim Estates Ltd v Ladbroke Retail Parks Ltd (1994).

This is important because certainty and the need not to overburden servient land are of prime importance in the law of easements.

Question 18

Is it possible for an easement to exist over your own land?

What case confirmed this?

Answer 18

No - this was confirmed in Roe v Siddons (1889)

Question 19

What happens to a pre existing easement when dominant and servient land fall into the same ownership?

Answer 19

any pre existing easement will be extinguished.