swarb.co.uk - law index
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Limitation - From: 1900 To: 1929
This page lists 15 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
In Re Jolly [1900] 2 Ch 616
1900
CA
Lord Alverstone MR, Rigby LJ
Landlord and Tenant, Limitation
Mrs Jolly let a farm to her son who paid rent until 1881, but not thereafter, and her title to the farm was extinguished in 1893. She died in 1898. The question which arose was whether at her death any rent arrears remained due. Held: The extinction of the title also determined her entitlement to arrears of rent.
Lord Alverstone MR said: "In the year 1893 R. T. Jolly obtained, by virtue of the Real Property Limitation Act 1874, s. 1, an absolute title to the property. It is, I think, inconsistent with his right so acquired that the rent which he ought to have paid should be deemed to be still owing. The effect of the Limitation Acts of 1833 and 1874 is, in my opinion, that, after the expiration of the statutory period of 20 and 12 years respectively, all rights which the reversioner would have had in respect of the land have come to an end; and I do not think that it would be consistent with that position that rent, the non-payment of which has given the occupier a title to the land, should still be deemed to be owing."
Rigby LJ said: "It seems to me to be plain that on the expiration of the twelve years all the rights of the owner of the land are determined."
1 Citers
Littledale v Liverpool College [1900] 1 Ch 19
1900
CA
Lord Lindley MR
Land, Limitation
The mere storage of items in a property was insufficient to demonstrate the necessary intention to dispossess the rightful owner. It was a mere exercise of the rights under an easement. Enclosure of land is not necessarily decisive. Lord Lindley MR said: "In order to acquire by the Statute of Limitations a title to land which has a known owner, that owner must have lost his right to the land either by being dispossessed of it or by having discontinued his possession of it."
1 Citers
Ruscoe v Grounsell (1903) 89 LT 426
1903
CA
Cozens-Hardy LJ, Lord Halsbury LC and Lord Alverstone LCJ
Land, Limitation
A stone tablet had been set into the wall of a building in 1816. I was inscribed "this stone is placed by J to perpetuate R's right to build within nine inches of this and any other building." R was selling part of his land (adjoining the plaque) to J. A buidling was erected next to the sign in 1901. The plaintiff objected that the new building obstructed the light to a window. The defendant relied upon the plaque. Held: The claim succeeded. The defence under section 3 did not suceed because it could not be construed as a consent or agreement within section 3 as regards a right of light.
Lord Halsbury said: "Enjoyment of light for twenty years would prima facie, under section 3 of the Prescription Act 1832, give a right to the light. Those who deny that the right has been acquired must show that the right has been cut down by the proviso to section 3. Looking at what has been done in this case, I will assume that the stone tablet contained an agreement and that it was in writing. But the question still remains whether that which appears upon this stone is an express agreement relating to light and made for that purpose. Looking at the possible reasons why the parties may have agreed to this inscription, I am wholly unable to say that it is so. I cannot say why the parties agreed to put this tablet up. If I were to do so, I should be doing that which the tablet itself has carefully avoided doing. I cannot come to the conclusion that it was in the minds of the parties that this tablet was intended to be a reservation as to the acquisition of a right to light. I can imagine it possible that the parties desired to preserve the boundary, when we see the statement as to "nine inches." I cannot, then, come to the conclusion that the right to obstruct the access of light to the windows of these houses was expressly reserved by an agreement expressly made for that purpose."
Prescription Act 1832 3
In re Lloyd; Lloyd v Lloyd [1903] 1 Ch 385
1903
CA
Land, Limitation
The court was asked as to a mortgagee's entitlement to require the mortgagor to pay all arrears of interest as a condition of redemption, even if some of the arrears would be statute-barred if the mortgagee were seeking to recover them by action, or to retain all such arrears on accounting to the mortgagor for the proceeds of a sale by the mortgagee. Held. The mortgagee was not affected by the limitation statute because it was not seeking to recover the interest by bringing an action.
Bree v Scott (1904) 29 VLR 692
1904
Beckett J, Madden C.J
Commonwealth, Landlord and Tenant, Limitation
(Supreme Court of Victoria) The defendant squatted from 1878 upon land allotted to her mother as Crown licensee. A Crown licensee was entitled to acquire the fee upon performance of obligations in the licence. In 1885 a Crown grant was duly issued to the mother in consideration of a payment then made. A mortgagee sought to eject the defendant. The question which arose was whether the 15-year limitation period had run its course by 1899. If the period ran from 1878 the claim was barred. If the period ran only from 1885, being the date of the grant of the legal estate through which the mortgagee claimed title, the claim was not barred. Held: Time ran from the earlier date. The licence under the Land Act 1869 was the seed of which the subsequent grant was the fruition of title. "Stated generally, the policy of the [limitation legislation] was to require a person having a right to land to exercise it as against a person illegally occupying at the peril of losing the land if the illegal occupation continued undisturbed for fifteen years. Here we have an occupation such as the Statute contemplated continuing undisturbed, and when it commenced, and up to the time of the issue of the grant, a person having legal title from the Crown who could have recovered the land against the occupant ... This inactive licensee and lessee afterwards acquired a legal estate in the fee, not by virtue of any new right unconnected with her prior interest, but by the maturing of a right which had its inception in the licence. No doubt, up to the issue of the grant, there was no certainty that the fee would be acquired: the right to the land was inchoate, and might have been lost, but it was in fact perfected, and we have to say whether the nature of this new title is such as to wipe out all the consequences of past inaction, and to give a new term of fifteen years within which inaction must continue before the illegal occupant could acquire title ... I should say that since the Judicature Act, if not before, the mere difference between legal and equitable estates would be insufficient. Take the case of omission to proceed against an illegal occupant by a purchaser under a contract of sale ... there is no reason for saying that a conveyance by the vendor ... would give this new start in the owner's favour ... The changes in the legal interest of the person who might have brought the action against the defendant in the present case made no changes in her rights as against the defendant; the right to turn her out was as good in the licensee as in the grantee."
1 Citers
Attorney General v Shadwell [1910] 1 Ch 92
1910
Warrington J
Land, Limitation
Land in Northholt was granted under the 1841 Act for use as a school. In 1907 the school was closed, another school having been opened by the local authority nearby. Thereafter the building was used only once a week for a Sunday school. The Board of Education contended that there had been no reverter because although the land was no longer being used for the general education of poor persons, use as a Sunday school provided them with "religious and useful knowledge". The argument of Mr Cave KC for the successor to the grantor was that a reverter occurred if the land ceased to be used for the statutory purpose chosen by the grantor. It did not matter that it was still being used for some other purpose which he could have chosen but did not: "The provision for reverter means that the land is to revert if it ceases to be used for such of the purposes of the Act as are specified in the grant, namely, in this case, the first purpose only." Held: Warrington J accepted this argument, saying that the Act specified three purposes and that "the grantor may select his own purpose from amongst those three". "you must read 'the purposes in this Act mentioned' as meaning such of those purposes as are applicable to the case in question" and "looking at the substance of the matter, as I consider I am bound to do, I must hold that the premises have ceased to be used for the purposes in the Act mentioned."
School Sites Act 1841 82
1 Citers
Airdrie Magistrates v Lanark County Council; 1910 - [1910] AC 286
Turner v Midland Railway Company; 1911 - [1911] KB 832
In re Benzon; CA 1914 - [1914] 2 Ch 68
Kaufmann Brothers v Liverpool Corporation; KBD 1916 - [1916] 1 KB 860
Nesbitt v Mablethorpe Urban District Council; 1918 - [1918] 2 KB 1
Taylor v Davies; PC 19-Dec-1919 - [1920] AC 636; [1857] EngR 521; (1857) 11 Moo PC 151; (1857) 14 ER 652; [1919] UKPC 136; [1857] UKPC 15
Spencer v Hemmerde; HL 1922 - [1922] 2 AC 507
Clarkson and Another v Davies and Others; PC 23-Oct-1922 - [1922] UKPC 79; [1923] AC 100
Aylott v West Ham Corporation [1927] 1 Ch 30
1927
CA
Lord Hanworth MR
Limitation
The plaintiff sought to recover a sum of money under a statute.
1 Citers