Stanning v Baldwin & Anor

In a boundary dispute, registered title plans showing general boundaries do not determine the exact legal boundary. The court must assess the historical evidence, including physical features, maps and the circumstances in which features were created. Earlier evidence is not automatically decisive where it was produced by crude or uncertain methods.

A prescriptive easement requires peaceable, open use without permission for 20 years. Underground drainage may satisfy the openness requirement where the servient owner knew, or reasonably ought to have inferred, that the right was being asserted and failed to inquire.

Intensification of an easement is not impermissible merely because use increases. A radical change in the character of the dominant land together with a substantial increase in the burden may defeat the right. A use which is self-evidently excessive may also be refused.

The claimant owned the Coach House adjoining Gerrards Cross Common. The defendants owned the Common. The dispute concerned the legal boundary, the extent of a prescriptive vehicular right of way over an unmade track, and a claimed prescriptive drainage easement serving the Coach House.

The claimant intended to demolish the Coach House and construct four terraced houses with underground parking. The defendants contended that the development would encroach on the Common, exceed the right of way, and lack sufficient drainage rights. The court also considered the defendants’ alternative claim to adverse possession of part of the bund.

The central issues were the location of the legal boundary, whether the existing easements accommodated the proposed development, and whether the defendants had established adverse possession.

1. Boundary. The claimant’s registered title plan did not determine the legal boundary. Under the general boundaries rule in Land Registration Act 2002, s 60, the registration left the precise line undefined. The court therefore assessed the historical evidence. The 1907 building plan was of little assistance because its accuracy, purpose and depiction of physical features were uncertain. The earliest reliable physical feature was the man-made bund, probably formed when Harewood Lodge was constructed in 1906. The bund was within the claimant’s land, and the blue fence and bund lay within the boundary depicted on the 1952 title plan.
2. Adverse possession. The defendants failed to prove either factual possession or an intention to possess. There was no satisfactory evidence that maintenance of the bund had been arranged by them or undertaken by the local council as their agent.
3. Right of way. The court applied the principles discussed in McAdams Homes Ltd v Robinson. A radical change in the character or identity of the dominant land and a substantial increase in the burden on the servient land will ordinarily be required before the right is suspended or lost. However, a use which is self-evidently excessive will not be permitted even if those two requirements are not both satisfied. The proposed development involved intensification, not a radical change in character. The evidence did not establish that construction traffic or later residential use would necessarily cause a public nuisance, breach the byelaws, damage the Track or constitute excessive use. The claimant was entitled to the declaration sought, subject to compliance with the law and without determining the precise dimensions of the vehicular easement.
4. Drainage. The drainage use was initially permissive or potentially permissive, but any personal permission ended when ownership changed and payments, if ever made, ceased. The construction of the Coach House and its connection to the existing drain put the owner of the Common on inquiry. The use was therefore sufficiently open from 1978 at the latest, and a prescriptive drainage easement arose after 20 years. The existing sewer had sufficient capacity and the proposed development did not involve a radical change in character, so the drainage easement accommodated the new houses.

The claim succeeded on the boundary, right of way and drainage issues. The adverse-possession claim failed.