White v Grand Hotel Eastbourne Ltd: CA 28 Oct 1912

A private dwelling house, to which a right of way was appurtenant, was converted into a hotel.
Held: A right of way granted for general purposes is not to be restricted to access to the land merely for such purposes as were reasonably required at the date of the grant; therefore a right of way for general purposes to a private dwelling-house is not affected by the house being turned into an hotel.
The conversion of a private residence on the dominant tenement to a lodging house for the drivers of cars whose owners stayed at a nearby hotel owned by the defendants was held not to subject the easement to a use not contemplated at the time of the grant in 1883. At that time, the dominant tenement had one resident with two vehicles. After the conversion it had ‘many residents of a shifting character with vehicles that do not belong to them’. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeal held that the different use was within the terms of the grant. Hamilton LJ said: ‘The house in the present case was used as a private dwelling-house in 1883, but with the consent of a third person it might be, as in fact it was, turned into a house which could be used to trade.’

Lord Cozens-Hardy MR, Hamilton LJ
[1913] 1 Ch 113, [1912] UKLawRpCh 117
Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
CitedPole and Another v Peake and Another CA 17-Jul-1998
The defendants owned land over which the plaintiffs owned shooting and other sporting rights. When the plaintiffs licenced those rights to others the defendants objected and prevented access. They appealed a finding that they had infringed the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Land

Updated: 14 November 2021; Ref: scu.264033