Re Webb’s Lease [1951] Ch 808

• Defendant leased a property to Plaintiff and advertised Defendant’s business by putting posters on the walls of the house (the posters had been there before Plaintiff moved in).

• Plaintiff wanted to have them taken down.

• CA found for Plaintiff, saying that the general rule was that a grantor, whether by way of conveyance or lease, of part of a hereditament in his ownership could not claim any easement over the part granted for the benefit of the part retained unless it were expressly reserved out of the grant;

• that if the landlord intended to reserve any rights over the demised premises it was his duty to reserve them expressly, and that, as he had failed in that duty, the onus was on him of establishing the facts to prove that the case was an exception to the general rule;

• that the mere fact that the tenant knew at the date of the lease that the landlord was using the outer walls of the demised premises for the display of the advertisements did not suffice to absolve the landlord from his duty of expressly reserving any rights in respect of them which he intended to claim or to take the case out of the general rule;

• that the landlord had failed to establish any sufficient ground for an implied reservation in his favour, such a reservation not being requisite for the effective enjoyment either of the premises demised or of the premises retained. 

Evershed MR

• For a reservation to be implied the right being reserved has to be precise, not vague as this is (i.e. how many posters can he continue to have, where on the wall etc.).