Owner of field permitting neighbours (husband and wife) to use strip as extension to their garden – Neighbours constructing brick-built greenhouse on strip in 1958 – Husband dying in 1984 having at all times acquiesced in use of strip by neighbours – JS dying in 1992 – County court ruling that widow entitled to use strip for remainder of occupation – Owner’s appeal dismissed
The defendant was the widow of JS, who died in 1992. She had lived in her present house at 11 Ryton Road, North Anston, Sheffield, since 1948. In 1956 a field behind the houses was purchased by JS’s friend, GH, who found that he had no use for a 50-ft wide strip at the rear of the gardens of nos 11 and 13. The following facts were found by the county court judge in determining a dispute over the strip between the defendant and the plaintiff, who had acquired legal title to the strip some years before the death of GH in 1984. In 1956 it was informally agreed between GH and JS that JS and the defendant should have exclusive permission to use the strip as an addition to their garden. In 1958 JS and the defendant, having planted seven fruit trees on the strip and enclosed an area for chickens, erected a 30-ft long greenhouse, possessing a 2.5 ft wall on foundations, and its own boiler and heating system. From 1968 to 1985 JS paid an annual rent of £4 for use of the strip. Having found that GH had at all times acquiesced in the use made of the strip, the judge went on to infer that JS had been led to believe that he had an interest in the strip sufficient to justify his expenditure of time, money and effort. On those findings the judge ruled, applying the law of estoppel, that the extent of the equity was to permit the defendant to continue her present use for as long as she lived permanently at no 11. The plaintiff appealed, contending, inter alia, that the facts, which only related to a greenhouse rather than a dwelling, did not allow the inference that GH encouraged JS to incur the alleged expenditure, and that, accordingly, the judge should have found that JS took the risk of repossession when he built the greenhouse. Alternatively, it was argued that any equity which may have arisen was exhausted by the time of the trial.
Held The appeal was dismissed.
1. The payment of a modest rent was not inconsistent with an understanding that JS and the plaintiff had an interest for as long as they lived at no 11.
2. Given that JS had built, within a comparatively short time of the arrangement, a substantial structure plainly intended to last for a long time, the judge was entitled to find on the balance of probabilities that the understanding was as he found it to be. Even without such a finding he was entitled to conclude from all the circumstances that it would be unconscionable and unjust to allow the appellant to assert her legal title: see Taylors Fashions Ltd v Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society [1979] 2 EGLR 54; Crabb v Arun District Council [1976] Ch 179. The facts in E&L Berg Homes Ltd v Grey [1980] 1 EGLR 103 and Sledmore v Dalby (1996) 72 P&CR 196 (relied on by the plaintiff) were very different from those of the present case.
3. Per Millett LJ. There was no evidence to support the agreement alleged by the appellant, but it would be wrong to interfere with the county court decision in so far as it was based on the events after 1956.
Soofi Din (instructed by Hickmotts, of Rotherham) appeared for the appellant; Rosalind Coe (instructed by the Law Partnership, of Sheffield) appeared for the respondent.
