The party claiming a right of way through the yard of a neighbouring inn, and her predecessors in title, had for well over 40 years used the inn yard (the only means of access with carts and horses to her premises) and had paid the annual sum of 15 shillings to the innkeeper. The most likely explanation of this payment was as an acknowledgement of the innkeeper’s title, amounting to ‘a succession of yearly licences not, perhaps, expressed every year, but implied and assumed and paid for’. To make a charge for entry to land is one way of making clear that entry is not as of right.
Held: The words ‘as of right’ in the 1832 Act were intended to have the same meaning as the older expression ‘nec vi, nec clam, nec precario’.
Earl of Halsbury LC said: ‘I cannot help thinking there has been a certain play upon words in commenting upon them. In a certain sense a man has a right to enjoy what he has paid for, and, therefore, if the appellant here at any time during the year when she had paid for the right to use this way had been hindered, she would have had a right to complain that what I will call her contract had been broken, and that during the year she had a right to use the way. I do not think that this would have established a right in the proper sense, because, being but a parol licence, it might be withdrawn, and her action would be for damages, but she would have no right to the way. And in no sense could the right be the right contemplated by the Act. That right means a right to exercise the right claimed against the will of the person over whose property it is sought to be exercised. It does not and cannot mean an user enjoyed from time to time at the will and pleasure of the owner of the property over which the user is sought’. ‘The common law doctrine is that all prescription presupposes a grant.’ Otherwise the fictional technique of presuming or inferring a lost modern grant would not meet the case.
Lord Lindley said: ‘The common law doctrine is that all prescription presupposes a grant. But if the grant is proved and its terms are known, prescription has no place’ and ‘the words ‘as of right’ were intended to have the same meaning as the older expression nec vi, nec clam, nec precario’
Lord Davey and Lord Lindley, Earl of Halsbury LC
[1903] AC 229
Prescription Act 1832 5
England and Wales
Cited by:
Considerered – Mills and Another v Silver and others CA 6-Jul-1990
A farm’s only vehicular access was over land which was only useable occasionally when dry. The defendants laid a stone track to facilitate constant access. At first instance it was held that the earlier use had been too intermittent to allow a . .
Cited – Regina v City of Sunderland ex parte Beresford HL 13-Nov-2003
Land had been used as a park for many years. The council land owner refused to register it as a common, saying that by maintaining the park it had indicated that the use was by consent and licence, and that prescription did not apply.
Held: . .
Cited – Bakewell Management Limited v Brandwood and others HL 1-Apr-2004
Houses were built next to a common. Over many years the owners had driven over the common. The landowners appealed a decision that they could not acquire a right of way by prescription over the common because such use had been unlawful as a criminal . .
Cited – Lewis, Regina (on The Application of) v Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and Another SC 3-Mar-2010
The claimants sought to have land belonging to the council registered as a village green to prevent it being developed. They said that it had for more than twenty years been used by the community for various sports. The council replied that it had . .
Cited – Barkas, Regina (on The Application of ) v North Yorkshire County Council and Another SC 6-Mar-2014
The Court was asked as to the registration of a playing field as a ‘town or village green’. Local residents asserted that their use of the land, having been ‘as of right’ required the registration. They now appealed against rejection of that . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land
Updated: 10 December 2021; Ref: scu.187764