Cases - B&Q plc v Liverpool and Lancashire Properties Ltd
Record details
- Name
- B&Q plc v Liverpool and Lancashire Properties Ltd
- Date
- [2000]
- Citation
- EWHC 463 (Ch)
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Easements
- Summary
-
The claimants had a lease of a unit on a retail park. The defendant landlord wanted to construct a large extension at the rear of a neighbouring unit. This area behind the units was subject to an expressly granted right of way in favour of the claimants. If the extension were built, the turning movements of the claimant's vehicles would be made more difficult.
Blackburne J. held that the test of an actionable interference was not whether what the grantee was left with was reasonable, but whether his insistence on being able to continue the use of the whole of what he had contracted for was reasonable, and that it was not open to the grantor to deprive the grantee of his preferred modus operandi and then argue that someone else would do things differently, unless the grantee's preference was perverse or unreasonable. He also held that the fact that an interference with an easement was infrequent and, when it occurred, was relatively fleeting, did not mean that the interference could not be actionable. Note that this case concerned an expressly granted right of way.