Cases - Mills v Silver & Others
Record details
- Name
- Mills v Silver & Others
- Date
- [1991]
- Citation
- 2 WLR 324
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Easements - Rights of light
- Summary
-
The first and second defendants owned a hill farm that, when it was dry enough, could be accessed by vehicles via a track over the plaintiff's land. They engaged the third defendant to lay a stone road on the track to make it passable in all weathers. The plaintiff sought an injunction to prevent the work.
On appeal, the defendants succeeded in establishing a right of way along the track to their farm arising by prescription, but the court dismissed their claim to be entitled to pave the track. It reasoned that as the owner of land with the benefit of a prescriptive right along a track is not entitled to increase the burden on the burdened land by building further buildings, there was no reason why that party should be entitled to do so by making a road over the burdened land so as to make it usable at all times of the year and in weather conditions when it was not passable before. A prescriptive right of way differed from a right of way by express grant, in that the extent of a prescriptive right of way was limited by the nature of the user from which it arose.