Success for Rachel Coyle at Land Registration Tribunal

July 19, 2023

Rachel Coyle from Exchange Chambers has successfully acted for her client in an application to the Land Registration Tribunal.

Rachel’s client successfully applied to be registered with possessory freehold title of a parcel of land adjoining his property on the grounds that he and his son had been in adverse possession of that land for a period in excess of 12 years.

Adverse possession means someone occupying land belonging to someone else, without permission. If someone does this continuously for a number of years then, in certain circumstances, the land may become theirs.

The disputed land was unregistered and the Applicant’s case was brought under s. 15 of the Limitation Act 1980.  The Applicant’s case was that they always believed that they owned the disputed land and treated it as their own.

Granting the application, Judge Muir ruled that they treated the land in the way that an occupying owner of a rural plot of little agricultural value might use it. They mended the fences, they planted poplar trees, they grazed sheep on it, they stored and dumped agricultural items on it, they created an access onto it from the Paddock, they created a path and they put jumps on it to train puppies. Taken together these actions show that they treated the land as part of their holding and occupied it as an owning occupier would have done.  She therefore granted the application for first registration of the disputed land.

Rachel Coyle was instructed by Fleet Solicitors LLP.

The judgment in the case can be found here.