Entry and possession by licence — Adverse possession for over 12 years — Agreement for 18-month tenancy — Acknowledgement of licence — Whether estoppel by contract — Whether agreement revived possessory rights of paper title owner — Claim by paper title owner succeeds
The plaintiff borough council are the owners of 11.5 acres of allotment land north of Colchester North railway station. In the 1950s the plaintiffs granted a Mr Tilson, the fourth defendant, a tenancy of three acres of the land; on the expiration of that tenancy in 1967 the plaintiffs refused to grant a further tenancy but allowed him to remain rent free for the rest of the year. Since 1967 Mr Tilson has been in possession of the original three acres and a further two acres, which he had enclosed for grazing purposes, without paying rent. In 1973-74 the plaintiffs laid sewers across the land and for a period the contractors were in sole possession of the affected land.
In November 1983, by which time he had been in possession of some of the land for a period exceeding 12 years, Mr Tilson entered into an agreement with the plaintiffs and was granted an 18-month tenancy. In the plaintiffs’ claim for possession the defendants submitted that they had acquired a title by adverse possession.
Held The claim was allowed.
The test in Buckinghamshire County Council v Moran [1989] 2 All ER 225 as to the necessary animus possidendi had been satisfied; Mr Tilson’s intention was to carry on farming the land. On the facts Mr Tilson’s possession became adverse in 1968. The 1967 agreement allowing the rent-free period amounted to a licence but did not become a tenancy pursuant to section 2 of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948. However, the 1983 agreement revived the plaintiffs’ title to the land over which Mr Tilson had established adverse possession. The agreement contained a clause whereby Mr Tilson acknowledged he had been a bare licensee; this amounted to estoppel by contract and destroyed the claim to adverse possession to part of the land. The plaintiffs were also entitled to rely on their paper title to a further area of the land which had been entered by the contractors in 1973 as this stopped time running for the purposes of the Limitation Act 1939.
Amalgamated Investment & Property Co Ltd v Texas Commerce International Bank Ltd
[1982] QB 84 applied.
Peter Taylor QC and John Holt (instructed by Sharpe Pritchard) appeared for the plaintiffs; and John Colyer QC and Alan Masters (instructed by Bawtree & Sons, of Witham) appeared for the defendants.