What’s obvious to a lawyer may not be clear to an ordinary & reasonable user, write Thomas Rothwell & Kavish Shah
- A number of recent cases have turned on the wording of signage, in relation to parking and other easements.
- They show the importance of considering the effect of the sign on ordinary users of the land, without assuming any legal knowledge.
The law relating to the acquisition of easements by prescription (or long use) has been described by the Supreme Court as ‘a mixture of inconsistent and archaic legal fictions, practical if sometimes haphazard judge-made rules and… well-meaning but ineptly drafted statutory provisions’: see Loose v Lynn Shellfish Ltd and others [2016] UKSC 14, [2016] All ER (D) 75 (Apr) at [38]. A detailed account of these difficulties lies beyond the remit of this article. Instead, we focus on one particular method of preventing prescriptive easements from arising, namely the erection of signage making it clear that any use of an owner’s land is contentious.
Prescriptive rights & their prevention
The basic principle
