license

license, in property law, permission to enter or use the property of another. There are three categories of license: bare licenses, contractual licenses, and licenses coupled with an interest. A bare license occurs when a person enters or uses the property of another with the express or implied permission of the owner or under circumstances that would provide a good defense against an action for trespass. For example, a person entering a gas station to ask for directions is a licensee and not a trespasser. Contractual license provides an express or implied permission to enter or use the property in exchange for some consideration. For example, the purchase of a movie ticket allows the ticket holder a license to enter the theatre at a particular time. Licenses that are acquired by contract normally include the right to use property that is protected by patent, copyright, or trademark. A license coupled with an interest arises when a person acquires the right to take possession of property located on someone else’s land, as when a lender acquires the right to repossess an automobile that is located on private property after the borrower has defaulted on a loan.

Bare licenses generally are not assignable (transferable) and are revocable at will by the property owner. The assignability and revocability of contractual licenses normally depend on the terms of the contract. Licenses coupled with an interest usually are both assignable and irrevocable, at least until the holder of the license has had a reasonable time to retrieve the property that gave rise to the license.

When a landowner permits another to use the land under circumstances in which it is reasonable to foresee that the licensee will spend money or otherwise change position in the belief that the license will not be revoked, the license may become irrevocable. For example, if a person owns two parcels, one of which has no access to a public road, sells the landlocked parcel to another person, and gives him permission to build a driveway across the lot the seller has retained, the license becomes irrevocable when the buyer invests in the property, reasonably believing that the permission will not be revoked. When the license becomes irrevocable, it may be called an “executed parol license,” though it is more accurately called a servitude created by estoppel, a term that better describes both the process used to create the right and the resulting right itself. An executed parol license creates a right that runs with the land indefinitely, a right properly described as a servitude. Describing it as an (irrevocable) executed parol license generates unnecessary complication in the law by creating an unneeded, redundant category. It also creates possible confusion because it suggests that there may be some body of law, other than servitudes law, that governs secondary questions like the scope and termination of executed parol licenses.