Keelwalk Properties Ltd v Waller [2002] EWCA Civ 1076
LAND LAW – PROPRIETARY ESTOPPEL – REPRESENTATION BY CONDUCT
Facts
The appellant owned several pieces of land containing wooden bungalows. The respondent had been granted a lease by the appellant’s predecessor-in-title, which expired after the appellant was conveyed the land. The appellant sought possession of the land. The respondent countered that he was entitled to renew the lease by reason of proprietary estoppel based on the predecessor-in-title’s long-standing practice of allowing the lease to be renewed.
Issues
A person will have an ‘equity’ in land if they can establish proprietary estoppel. Establishing this requires them to prove that the land-owner made an unequivocal representation that they had a proprietary interest, which they relied on to their detriment, such that it would be unconscionable to renege on the representation. The inchoate equity that results from proprietary estoppel can be satisfied by the court using a range of remedies: whatever remedy would do the minimum amount of justice in the case.
Representations may be made by words or conduct. The issue in this case was whether, the predecessor-in-title’s long-standing practice of allowing the lease to be renewed was sufficient to ground a proprietary estoppel.
Decision/Outcome
The Court of Appeal held in the appellant’s favour.
The Court held that the practice of repeatedly renewing a lease could not, without more, justify the belief that the practice would go on forever. If a land-owner’s conduct cannot reasonably justify a particular belief, it cannot be taken to be a representation for the purposes of proprietary estoppel. The Court noted that no amount of detrimental reliance can transform a conduct into a representation if it did not justify a particular belief. For this reason, there was no representation in this case, and so no proprietary estoppel.
Updated 21 March 2026
This case note accurately summarises the Court of Appeal’s decision in Keelwalk Properties Ltd v Waller [2002] EWCA Civ 1076. The legal principles described — including the requirements for proprietary estoppel (unequivocal representation, detrimental reliance, and unconscionability) and the court’s discretion as to remedy — remain good law. The core finding that a mere course of dealing, such as repeatedly renewing a lease, cannot without more amount to a representation sufficient to found proprietary estoppel is consistent with subsequent case law, including the House of Lords’ analysis in Thorner v Major [2009] UKHL 18, which confirmed that the representation or assurance must be clear enough in context to justify the claimant’s reliance. Nothing in subsequent legislation or case law has displaced the principles applied in this decision. Readers should be aware that proprietary estoppel continues to be a developing area of law and that the precise requirements — particularly as to the nature of the assurance and the flexibility of the remedy — have been further considered in cases such as Davies v Davies [2016] EWCA Civ 463 and Guest v Guest [2022] UKSC 27, the latter of which contains important Supreme Court guidance on the approach to remedying proprietary estoppel claims. Those developments do not affect the correctness of the outcome described in this note but are relevant broader reading for anyone studying this area.
