Keelwalk Properties Ltd v Waller [2002] EWCA Civ 1076
LAND LAW – PROPRIETARY ESTOPPEL – REPRESENTATION BY CONDUCT
Facts
Keelwalk acquired land let in plots with wooden bungalows. It sought possession of two plots after the leases expired. The tenants relied on the previous landlord’s long-standing practice of renewing leases at a ground rent and argued that proprietary estoppel entitled them to new leases.
Issues
Proprietary estoppel can arise where a landowner gives an assurance about rights over land, the other person relies on it to their detriment, and it would be unconscionable for the landowner to go back on it.
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.
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Decision/Outcome
The Court of Appeal allowed Keelwalk’s appeal and made possession orders against both sets of tenants, suspended for three months, with an inquiry into mesne profits.
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 could turn the past practice into an assurance of perpetual renewal. For this reason, there was no representation in this case, and so no proprietary estoppel.
Reported citation [2002] 48 EG 142
