Easements:
• Incorporeal hereditaments
• Certain limited rights that one landowner may enjoy over the land of a neighbour
• Examples include right of way/light
• Not limited to these ancient rights
• Right to use the land -> movement of aircraft: Dowty Bolton v Wolverhampton
• Right to park: Moncrief v Jamieson
• Right to cross w/ shopping trolley: London & Blenheim Estate v Ladbroke
• Vital to realise that every easement will involve 2 separate pieces of land
• Easements: confer benefit on the dominant tenement [DT]
• Easements: place burden on the servient tenement [ST]
• Easement-> once created confers benefits/burden on the land itself
• Not merely personal, it is a proprietary interest in land
• Care must be taken in defining the types of rights that may be easements
• Too many/ vague/uncertain: ST ≠ enjoy land
• Too few/stagnant in the face of socio-economic change -> impossible for the DT to
safeguard the value & amenity of their property
Smith v Miller: element of public policy in regard to granting easement
• Easement -> accommodate DT simultaneously not burdening the ST
• Re Ellenborough criteria: DADS
1. DT and ST
2. Accommodation
3. Diversity
4. Subject matter of the grant
• Hawkins v Rutler easement cannot exist in gross -> ST and DT must be identifiable at the
time of easement
• Easement -> benefit of land not yet identified -> possible: London & Blenheim v Ladbroke
• Need for DT & ST -> not everyone can enjoy rights over ST land.
• DT & ST must not both be owned and occupied by same person:
a. Roe v Siddons
b. Wright v Macaden
c. Bratt Ltd v Habboush
• Easement must benefit the DT/accommodation
• Restricts easements to those rights that attach to land
• Guidelines for easements:
1. ST must be sufficiently proximate to DT: Bailey v Stephens
2. Alleged right must not confer a purely personal adv. to the DT:
a. Hill v Tuper [denied]
b. Platt v Crouch [allowed]
