Wrotham Park Estate v Parkside Homes [1974] 1 WLR 798
Property law – Restrictive covenants – Damages
Facts
The owner of an estate sold a parcel of land to a developer, with a covenant that the developer did not build on the land without the approval of the owner of the estate. The covenant was registered as a charge on the land under the Land Charges Act 1925, as a Class D charge. The developer built on the land around it but left an area undeveloped before the patch of land was sold to a local authority in 1955 and sold on again in 1971 with approved planning permission. The plaintiff issued an injunction to prevent the construction upon the land and the defendant proceeded to build on the land.
Issue
The court was required to establish two key points. The first was whether the restrictive covenant had passed with the land and was therefore enforceable by the plaintiff. The second was if the covenant was enforceable, whether damages could be claimed by the plaintiff as a result of the land being built upon. It was important for the court to consider the nature of the prohibition on the land and whether the benefit of the covenant could be identified.
Decision/Outcome
The covenant could be enforced as it was sufficiently defined and registered with the land. However, it would be difficult and unjust to demolish the roads and houses that had already been developed. Therefore, the court ordered that damages should be granted. In terms of measuring damages, the court held that the sum should equate to an amount that would have been able to reasonably relax the covenant.
Updated 21 March 2026
This case note accurately describes the facts, issues, and outcome in Wrotham Park Estate Co Ltd v Parkside Homes Ltd [1974] 1 WLR 798. However, readers should be aware of significant subsequent legal developments affecting the damages principle established in this case.
The remedy awarded in Wrotham Park — sometimes called ‘gain-based damages’ or a share of the defendant’s anticipated profits — was the subject of considerable uncertainty as to its legal basis. The Supreme Court addressed this directly in One Step Support Ltd v Morris-Garner [2018] UKSC 20, [2019] AC 649. The Supreme Court held that such damages (now commonly called ‘negotiating damages’) are a form of compensatory damages, available where the loss suffered by the claimant can appropriately be measured by reference to the economic value of the right that was infringed — not a standalone gain-based remedy. The Court clarified that negotiating damages are not available simply because it would be just to grant them, and they are not available as a matter of judicial discretion in every case of breach. This significantly narrows the scope of the Wrotham Park principle compared to how it had sometimes been interpreted in intervening case law, including Attorney-General v Blake [2001] 1 AC 268.
Students relying on this case note should read it alongside One Step Support, which now represents the leading authority on negotiating damages in English law.
