## Facts

- A developer affiliated with Temco, Inc. and Dittmar Co., Inc. owned an apartment complex with a swimming pool and an adjacent residential lot at 900 South Wakefield Street in Arlington County, Virginia.
- In 1962, the first purchasers of the house (the Wynns) signed a purchase contract stating: “Use of apartment swimming pool to be available to purchaser and his family.”
- The seller’s agent told the Wynns the pool right would accompany ownership and be available to later purchasers, and that it would help resale.
- Temco later conveyed the house to the Wynns by deed that did not mention any pool right.
- In 1969, Edward and Sandra Bunn contracted to buy the house from the Wynns; their contract did not mention pool use.
- The Wynns and a realty representative told the Bunns that pool use accompanied the property.
- After closing, the developer refused to provide pool passes; the developer testified he never intended pool use to extend beyond the Wynns.
- The Bunns sued seeking a declaration that their property had an easement to enter the apartment property and use the pool.
- The trial court, after hearing evidence ore tenus, entered a final decree finding no easement; the Bunns appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the 1962 purchase-contract language about pool use created an easement appurtenant that could pass to later purchasers, or only a personal, non-assignable license.
2. Whether the Bunns nonetheless had an easement by implication, estoppel, necessity, or prescription.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the trial court’s decree.
- The pool-use language in the 1962 purchase contract created a personal license for the Wynns and their family, not an easement.
- Because the deed to the Wynns was silent as to pool use, no express easement in land was conveyed.
- A license is personal and cannot be assigned; thus, no pool-use right passed to the Bunns.
- The record did not establish an easement by implication, estoppel, necessity, or prescription.

## Legal Principles

- A promise in a real-estate purchase contract concerning use of another parcel’s amenities, if not incorporated into the deed, may be construed as a personal license rather than an easement appurtenant.
- An express easement affecting land must be created by deed or other effective conveyance; a deed silent on the claimed servitude does not transfer that property interest.
- Licenses are generally personal to the licensee and are not assignable to subsequent purchasers.
- Easements by implication, estoppel, necessity, and prescription require specific proof; casual use and sales representations are insufficient absent facts meeting the doctrine’s elements.
- Appellate review gives weight to ore tenus factual findings; such findings are upheld unless plainly wrong.

## Conclusion

The court held that the contractual pool-use language granted only a personal, nontransferable license to the original buyers, and that later purchasers acquired no pool-use easement because the deed contained no grant and the evidence did not support any implied, estoppel-based, necessary, or prescriptive easement.


Bunn v. Offutt, 222 S.E.2d 522 (Va. 1976)