Copeland v Greenhalf [1952] Ch 488, ChD
Property law – Easement – Claim of Prescriptive right – Whether such right an easement of law
Facts:
Copeland owned an orchard and adjoining house. Access to the orchard from the road was via a strip of land, about 150 foot long. Copeland brought action against his neighbour, who owned the property against the road and parked on the strip of land. Greenhalf claimed he had a prescriptive right to do so through a lost grant.
Issues:
Whether an easement existed which Greenhalf was entitled to, allowing him to park his car over the strip.
Held:
Greenhalf’s claim was mainly based on the fact his family had been using the strip for generations. It was found that this did not constitute a legal right of way. His claim was too extensive to constitute an easement in law, as it amounted to a claim only to the benefit of the user of the land, as parking a car there largely blocked the access to the orchard. The arrangement went wholly outside any ordinary definition of an easement, usually being the owner or the occupier of a dominant tenement over a servient tenement. By parking vehicles on the strip for any length of time he pleased, coming and going as he wished with his contractors etc, it was found not to be a valid claim to establish an easement. Conduct that was tolerated to some degree, did not create a lost grant in circumstances where the land was being blocked, causing an inconvenience to the owner of the land.
Updated 21 March 2026
This case note accurately reflects the decision in Copeland v Greenhalf [1952] Ch 488, which remains good law. The principle that an alleged easement will fail if it amounts to a claim to the whole or substantially the whole use of the servient land — effectively dispossessing the servient owner — continues to be applied by the courts.
Students should be aware of subsequent case law that has refined and, in some respects, qualified the approach in Copeland v Greenhalf. In particular, Moncrieff v Jamieson [2007] UKHL 42, the Supreme Court’s predecessor (the House of Lords) held that a right to park could in principle exist as an easement, and suggested that the correct test is not simply whether the servient owner is excluded but whether the claimant is claiming ownership or possession of the servient land. Lord Scott expressed doubt about the correctness of Copeland v Greenhalf on its facts, though the case has not been formally overruled. English courts have continued to apply Copeland v Greenhalf as part of domestic authority, while acknowledging the tension with Moncrieff: see, for example, Virdi v Chana [2008] EWHC 2901 (Ch). The law on parking easements therefore remains somewhat unsettled, and students should consider both authorities when analysing this area.
