7. Personal Rights: Licences

All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing able students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter presents a discussion of licences. Licences can be grouped into a number of categories, including bare licences, contractual licences, estoppel licences, statutory licences, and licences coupled with an interest. The key feature of a bare licence is that A is under no duty to B not to revoke the licence. The distinction between a bare licence and a contractual licence turns on the question of whether A is under a contractual duty to B. An estoppel licence, as well as a statutory licence, is similar to a contractual licence: the key difference is the source of A’s duty to B. A ‘licence coupled with an interest’ is a permission to make a particular use of A’s land, which arises as part of a distinct property right held by B in A’s land. The chapter considers the impact of all these forms of licences, looking at the positions of A, of X (a stranger who interferes with the land), and of C (a party who acquires a right in the land from A). It considers whether particular forms of licence ought to count as equitable interests in land. It also examines when a licensee may be protected by a new, direct right against a third party, even though the licence itself is only a personal right.