Essential Characteristics of Easements Flashcards
Define hereditament
A property right that can be inherited
Define incorporeal hereditament
An intangible property right such as an easement, profit or rentcharge that can be inherited
Right to use another’s toilet
Miller v Emcer
Right to use another’s kitchen for washing
Heywood Mallalieu
Courts do not have the right to invent new easements
Philips v Pears
Four characteristics of an easement
Re Ellenborough Park
Must be a dominant and servant tenement.
The easement must accommodate the dominant land.
The easement must be owned or occupied by different people.
‘An easement must be capable of forming the subject matter as a grant’.
An easement cannot exist in ‘gross’
London and Blenheim Estates v Ladbroke retail park ltd
The easement must accommodate the dominant land
D land must get a pleasure, not just the owner. Would the easement make the land worth more?
The easement must be owned or occupied by different people.
Obvious, here’s the case: Re Ellenborough Park
For leases: Bormann v Griffith
Must be capable of forming a grant
There must be a capable grantor and grantee.
An easement must be capable of reasonable exact distinction.
The easement ought to within general categories of established easements.
An easement must not involve any expenditure by the servient owner.
An easement must not be so extensive that it deprives the owner of possession.
An easement must be capable of reasonable exact distinction.
A freehold owner is fine,
Leasehold lasts as long as the lease, (Simmons v Dobson)
Nemo dat quod non habet.
Can’t be too vague, jus spatiandi. (Re Ellenborough Park)
The right to light is only to windows and within reason (Colls case).
The easement ought to within general categories of established easements.
Simple, incredibly hard to create negative easements (Hunter v Canary Wharf)
An easement must not involve any expenditure by the servient owner.
Rance v Elvin
Fences are the exception.(Crow v Wood).
What if a building falls down and blocks the use of an easement?
Dom owner can enter the servient land and at his own expense reconstruct the support he was getting. (Jones v Pritchard).
An easement must not be so extensive that it deprives the owner of possession.
Reilly v Booth
