The effect of 12 years’ adverse possession of unregistered land is to re-draw the boundary between adjoining properties to reflect the position on the ground.
The Court of Appeal has considered this issue, allowing an appeal in Clapham and others v Narga [2024] EWCA Civ 1388.
The case concerned the location of the boundary between 24, 25 and 26 the Green, Thrussington, Leicestershire, owned by the claimants and Brook Barn owned by the defendant. Prior to the 1980s, the properties were in common ownership.
Brook Barn lay to the north of the claimants’ properties and was separated from them by a brook, on the north side of which was a steep bank with a fence at the top. The title plan to Brook Barn showed the boundary with the properties lying to the south of the brook. The claimants asserted title to the brook and the land up to the fence.
The judge found that the claimants had all acquired title to the land up to the fence by adverse possession by October 2000, before the registration of title to Brook Barn in March 2003. The defendant, who acquired Brook Barn in May 2020, held the title to the disputed land as trustee for the claimants under section 75 of the Land Registration Act 1925.
Once the Land Registration Act 2002 came into force para 18 of schedule 12 entitled the claimants to be registered as proprietors of the disputed land. Those rights ranked as overriding interests for three years but, after that, overriding interests required both actual occupation of the disputed land and that such occupation was obvious on a reasonable inspection of the land. The claimants were in occupation but the occupation was not obvious when the defendant purchased, so their claims failed.
On a second appeal, the Court of Appeal decided that the general boundaries rule under section 60 of the 2002 Act applied: the title plan to Brook Barn did not settle the exact location of the boundary. In addition, section 75 of the 1925 Act has no application where title to the land in question has been extinguished by adverse possession before it was registered.
Long before 2003 the claimants had acquired title by adverse possession to their respective parts of the disputed land and so the boundary between 24, 25 and 26 the Green and Brook Barn lay along the line of the fence. The disputed land was not included in registration of the title to Brook Barn in 2003 and could not have been included in the transfer to the defendant in 2020.
Louise Clark is a property law consultant and mediator
