High Court decision on title to a valuable Banksy mural removed from a building by the tenant
The tenant, Dreamland Leisure Limited, which ran an amusement arcade from the Folkestone premises, held a 20-year lease of the building. During an arts festival known as the Folkestone triennial, the mural, popularly known as “Art Buff”, was spray-painted onto the exterior flank wall of the building. The tenant arranged for the section of the wall to be removed and the wall was made good to the appropriate standard. The mural was then transported to the United States, where it was exhibited for sale at an arts festival in Miami.
The claimant is a Folkestone-based charity which took an assignment of the landlord’s cause of action and the landlord’s title to the mural. Having obtained an interim injunction restraining the tenant from dealing with the mural, the claimant brought a claim in conversion for the delivery up of the mural on the ground that once severed from the building, the bricks and mortar (together with the paint sprayed onto them) belonged to the landlord, not the tenant.
The tenant defended the claim on the ground that in removing the section of wall on which the mural was painted, it was complying with its covenants to keep the building in good repair and condition because the mural was graffiti which required to be remedied under that covenant. It was then argued that, once removed pursuant to the tenant’s covenant, the section of wall belonged to the tenant.
Arnold J. rejected the tenant’s arguments. He held that there was no real prospect of the tenant persuading the court at trial that it was acting in compliance with its repairing obligations in removing the wall. Even if it had been acting pursuant to its covenant, the Judge held that the title to the severed bricks (and the mural painted on them) nevertheless reverted to the landlord. Accordingly, the claimant’s claim succeeded.
Adam Rosenthal appeared as junior counsel for the Claimant.
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