Tulk v Moxhay

Tulk v Moxhay
Court	Court of Chancery
Decided	22 December 1848
Citations	[1848] EWHC Ch J34 (1848) 41 ER 1143
Transcript	None published. Court-authorised law report issued.
Case history
Prior action	Prohibitory injunction granted by the Master of the Rolls (Under the cited case the Lord Chancellor refused a motion to dismiss the injunction)
Court membership
Judges sitting	Lord Cottenham, Lord Chancellor of England and Wales (1836–1841 and 1846–1850)
Keywords
Restrictive covenant

Tulk v Moxhay is a landmark English land law case which decided that in certain cases a restrictive covenant can "run with the land" (i.e. a future owner will be subject to the restriction) in equity. It is the reason that Leicester Square exists today.

On the face of it disavowing that covenants can "run with the land" so as to avoid the strict common law's former definition of "running with the land", the case has been explained by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1950 as meaning that "covenants enforceable under the rule of Tulk v Moxhay ... are properly conceived as running with the land in equity";^[1] the Canadian court's wording summarises how the case has been interpreted and applied in decisions across common law jurisdictions.