The plaintiffs granted a lease of land subject to a covenant to give notice of those who worked in the silk mills to be erected and to pay fees for workers employed to cover the town’s responsibilities to inhabitants brought into the town. They now sought payment from the defendants, who were successors in title, and who had not given notice or made payments as required. The defendants argued that they were not liable since it was only a collateral covenant and did not run with the land.
Held: The claim failed: ‘This is a covenant in which the assignee is specifically named; and though it were for a thing not in case at the time, yet being specifically named, it would bind him, if it affected the nature, quality, or value of the thing demised, independently of collateral circumstances; or if it affected the mode of enjoying it. But this covenant does not affect the thing demised, in the one way or the other. It may indeed collaterally affect the lessors as to other lands they may have in possession in the same parish, by increasing the poor’s rate upon them; but it cannot affect them even collaterally in respect of the demised premises during the term. How then can it affect the nature, quality, or value of the thing demised? Can it make any difference to the mills, whether they are worked by persons of one parish or another: or can it affect the value of the thing at the end of the term, independently of collateral circumstances? ‘
Judges:
Lord Ellenborough CJ, Le Blanc J
Citations:
[1808] EWHC KB J66
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Landlord and Tenant, Land
Updated: 09 July 2022; Ref: scu.248376