Cases - Creative Foundation v Dreamland Leisure Ltd & Ors
Record details
- Name
- Creative Foundation v Dreamland Leisure Ltd & Ors
- Date
- [2015]
- Citation
- EWHC 2556 (Ch)
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Commercial property - landlord and tenant - dilapidations - repairing obligations
- Summary
-
Dreamland Leisure Ltd was the tenant of a building used as an amusement arcade. Banksy, the street artist, spray-painted graffiti onto the external wall of the building in September 2014. The tenant removed the area of the wall containing the graffiti (purportedly worth around £300,000) and sent it to New York for sale to a third party. The section of wall where the mural had been removed was then repaired. The tenant claimed it was carrying out its repairing obligations under the lease.
Stonefield Estates Ltd, the landlord of the building, assigned its interest in the graffiti to The Creative Foundation, a charitable art foundation, who then brought a claim for summary judgement. They claimed that the graffiti was sprayed onto the landlord’s land and, as a result, the paint became part of the land. The tenant was in breach of its alteration prohibition and its repairing obligations.
The High Court agreed with the tenant that graffiti on an external wall of a building could count as disrepair. They disagreed, however, with their method of repair, stating that painting over the graffiti or removing it by chemical or abrasive cleaning would be less invasive than removing a section of the wall itself. Such an act was not an objectively reasonable means of repair. Further, it was held that the mural was the landlord's property or chattel because of its substantial value. Accordingly, the tenant was ordered to repatriate the mural.