London and Blenheim Estates Ltd v Ladbroke Retail Parks Ltd

London and Blenheim Estates Ltd v Ladbroke Retail Parks Ltd
Court	Court of Appeal
Citation(s)	[1993] 4 All ER 157, [1994] 1 WLR 31
Keywords
Easements, car parking

London and Blenheim Estates Ltd v Ladbroke Retail Parks Ltd [1993] 4 All ER 157 is an English land law case, concerning easements. It defines the extent to which parking a car on land could amount to an easement.

Facts

Leicestershire Coop sold part of its land to London & Blenheim, with the right to park cars on the land retained by the Coop. The agreement included a provision that if L&B were to acquire more land, it should tell the Coop in advance in order to get similar parking rights. Then, the Coop sold its land to Ladbroke. L&B wished to serve notice for more parking rights for new land it had acquired.

Judgment

High Court

Judge Paul Baker QC held the following.^[1]

“

The essential question is one of degree. If the right granted in relation to the area over which it is to be exercisable is such that it would leave the servient owner without any reasonable use of his land, whether for parking or anything else, it could not be an easement though it might be some larger or different grant.

”

Court of Appeal

Peter Gibson LJ held that L&B could not claim a car parking right for additional land, because the alleged dominant tenement was not adequately identified. The reason why there must be a dominant tenement before there can be a grant is because certainty is of prime importance, as said in Ashburn Anstalt v Arnold.^[2]

“

A right intended as an easement and attached to a servient tenement before the dominant tenement is identified would in my view be an incident of a novel kind.

”

Cases on easements

Aldred's Case (1610) 9 Co Rep 57

Hill v Tupper (1863) 2 H & C 121

Re Ellenborough Park [1956] Ch 131

London and Blenheim Ltd v Ladbroke Ltd [1993] 4 All ER 157

Phipps v Pears [1965] 1 QB 76

Moncrieff v Jamieson [2007] UKHL 42.

Das v Linden Mews Ltd [2002] EWCA Civ 590

LPA 1925 ss 1(2) 62 and 65(1)

Wheeldon v Burrows (1879) 12 Ch D 31

Wong v Beaumont Property Trust [1965] 1 BE 173

Pwllbach Colliery v Woodman [1915] AC 624

Kent v Kavanagh [2006] EWCA Civ 162

Green v Lord Somerleyton [2003] EWCA Civ 198

Hair v Gillman (2000) 80 P&CR 108

Prescription Act 1832 ss 2-3

Land Charges Act 1972 s 2(5)(d)(iii)

LRA 2002 s 27(2)(a) and Sch 3, para 3

Crow v Wood [1971] 1 QB 77

Crabb v Arun District Council [1975] EWCA Civ 7

R (Barkas) v North Yorkshire CC [2014] UKSC 31

Notes

↑ [1993] 1 All ER 307, 317
↑ [1993] 4 All ER 157, 163h

References

External links

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