Wheeldon v Burrows
When land is divided, the buyer of part acquires easements over the seller's retained land that were continuous and apparent, necessary for reasonable enjoyment and used by the seller, but the seller does not impliedly reserve easements over the part sold.
Facts
The owner of a workshop and an adjoining plot of land sold the plot first, and later sold the workshop to another buyer. The workshop had windows that received light across the plot. The buyer of the plot built on it, blocking the light to the workshop windows. The buyer of the workshop claimed that the workshop had an easement of light over the plot.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal held that there was no easement. Thesiger LJ said that, on a grant of part of land, the grantee acquires all those continuous and apparent quasi easements, which are necessary to the reasonable enjoyment of the property granted and which have been and are at the time of the grant used by the owner of the whole for the benefit of the part granted. But there is no corresponding implied reservation in favour of the grantor, who must reserve any rights he wishes to keep expressly. Since the seller had sold the plot first without reserving a right of light, the later buyer of the workshop could not claim one.
Related cases on easements
- Batchelor v Marlow [2001] EWCA Civ 1051, [2003] 1 WLR 764
- Copeland v Greenhalf [1952] Ch 488
- 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
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