ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION There is no necessary reason why the law of licences and the law of proprietary estoppel should be considered together. ‘Licences’ are one way in which a person may enjoy some right or privilege over the land of another person and much of the dispute in this area concerns the theoretical and practical distinction between ‘licences’ and other types of right over land, such as leases and easements. ‘Proprietary estoppel’, on the other hand, is a method for the creation of rights over land. Viewed in this way, proprietary estoppel is a mechanism that may give rise to licences, easements, leases or any other kind of right connected with the use and enjoyment of land and should be considered as a doctrine in its own right. However, that said, it is true that many of the cases and most of the textbooks consider licences and proprietary estoppel together. This is because many occasions for the application of proprietary estoppel arise out of situations in which the claimant previously had merely a licence over the defendant’s land, although there are of course many examples of proprietary estoppel in which the parties previously stood in no prior relationship at all. For ease of exposition, and consistency with other texts, this chapter will follow the conventional pattern and consider first the law of licences, and then the scope and purpose of the doctrine of proprietary estoppel.
