An owner of an estate in land has rights that extend only as far as the lower airspace above the physical surface area of the land necessary for the ordinary use and enjoyment of that land.

The plaintiff owned a flat which was mortgaged. When he fell into arrears with the mortgage repayments, the bank sought possession and sold the property. A question arose as to whether some of the contents of the flat were fixtures, and thus part of the security for the debt.

In deciding the issue of whether an item is a fixture or chattel, look beyond the two key tests of degree and purpose of annexation (as discussed in ‘“Ownership” of “land”’).

Despite being free-standing, marble statues of lions, garden seats, and ornaments were held to be fixtures, and thus part of the land.

Where evidence is produced that objects have been positioned so as to improve the overall architectural design of a property, those objects may become fixtures, even where there is no degree of annexation.

Wooden bungalows, not themselves attached to the land, rested on concrete pillars that were attached. The bungalows were deemed to be fixtures.

Even where there is no physical attachment to the land, an object could be a fixture where it is deemed to be used in situ and could not be removed without physical destruction.

Tapestries attached to a wall of a building were held to be chattels.

Although physical attachment of an object to the land might suggest that object has become a fixture, this may not be the case where such attachment is purely so that the object can be enjoyed.

The plaintiff, a passenger at Heathrow Airport, found a gold bracelet on the floor of the executive lounge. He handed it in to an employee of the defendant requesting it be returned to him should no one claim the item. No one claimed the bracelet but the defendant sold it and retained the proceeds. It was held that the plaintiff was entitled to damages.

The rights of the finder of an object found on the surface of the ground can only be displaced by the owner of the land where the object was found if the latter manifested an intention to control the land and items found on it.

The defendant, lawfully in a public park, unlawfully used a metal detector to detect a gold brooch buried in the ground. It was held that the council’s rights to the brooch were superior to the finder’s.

Where an object is found in or attached to land, the owner of that land has better title to that object than the finder.