Copeland v Greenhalf
A right to store vehicles on a strip of land was too extensive to be an easement, because it amounted to joint possession of the land.
Facts
Mr Greenhalf, a wheelwright, had for about 50 years used a narrow strip of land next to a road, owned by Mrs Copeland, to store and repair vehicles awaiting repair or collection. He claimed that he had acquired an easement by prescription to use the strip in this way.
Legal principle
Upjohn J held that the right claimed was not an easement. He said that the right claimed went wholly outside any normal idea of an easement, because it amounted to a claim to the whole beneficial use of the strip of land, and so was in effect a claim to joint possession or even sole possession of it. If Mr Greenhalf had any right, it was a claim to the land itself by adverse possession, which he had not pleaded.
Related cases on easements
- Batchelor v Marlow [2001] EWCA Civ 1051, [2003] 1 WLR 764
- Dalton v Angus & Co (1881) 6 App Cas 740
- Re Ellenborough Park [1956] Ch 131
- Hill v Tupper (1863) 2 H & C 121
- Mills v Silver [1991] Ch 271
- Moncrieff v Jamieson [2007] UKHL 42, [2007] 1 WLR 2620
- Nickerson v Barraclough [1981] Ch 426
- Phipps v Pears [1965] 1 QB 76
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