The court accepted that local farmers could identify which sheep belonged to what person on the owner’s land but the owner of the land was not able to do so and, not sharing that common knowledge, did not have knowledge of the user, and court denied the right to infer from so-called ‘common knowledge’, that is common local knowledge, that the servient owner had the knowledge of the relevant user.
A licence to use land cannot be implied from mere inaction of a landowner with knowledge of the use to which his land is being put: ‘Before Mr Davies could establish a claim based on prescription the evidence would have to show that the owner of the servient tenement had knowledge of what was happening, or as an ordinary owner must be taken to have had reasonable opportunity of knowledge, and that, having power to prevent it, he did not intervene.’
Morris LJ
[1953] 1 QB 184
England and Wales
Cited by:
Applied – 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 . .
Distinguished – Dance v Triplow CA 1992
The parties were neighbours. T got planning permission in 1977 to build a two storey extension. D, the plaintiff, knew of the plan and that it would interrupt the light to his bungalow. Over the years, the plan was implemented in stages, and in . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land
Updated: 10 December 2021; Ref: scu.187762
