Defendants claiming possessory title under Limitation Act 1980 — Occupation commencing on terms of successive grazing licences — Claimant owner refusing to renew licences — Defendants continuing to farm disputed land — Whether defendants taking adverse possession — Whether defendants having necessary intention to dispossess — Whether modern law allowing for notion of non-adverse possession — Appeal allowed
Between 1975 and 1977, the first-named claimant (Pye) acquired a substantial area of farmland that included the disputed land. Its intention was to hold the disputed land until planning permission could be obtained for development. From 1977, Pye entered into a succession of seasonal agreements licensing the owners for the time being of the adjoining property, Manor Farm, to graze animals on the disputed land. The last agreement of that nature was made on 1 February 1983, whereby the licensee, JG, undertaking, inter alia, not to part with possession, acquired no more than the right to graze the land until the end of that year or to take one cut of grass. Later that year, JG agreed to plough and reseed the disputed land, as contractor for Pye, for a payment of £650. In June 1984, JG bought the standing crop of grass on the disputed land for £1,100. During the following months, two letters were sent on behalf of JG requesting a further mowing or cutting licence from Pye. Both letters went unanswered.
From that time onwards, JG made no further contact with Pye. G, and later his son MG, continued to farm the disputed land all year round, while carrying out various fertilising and maintenance operations that would have been uneconomic if Pye had retaken possession. This was done without interference from Pye, whose means of access to the disputed land was, in any event, very limited. In 1997, MG, relying upon section 15 of the Limitation Act 1980, claimed that he had acquired possessory title to the disputed land. In February 1998, he was killed in a shooting accident. In April 1998, Pye brought proceedings against the personal representatives of MG (the defendants), challenging the assertion made by MG. Pye failed at first instance but succeeded before the Court of Appeal, where it was held that JG and MG did not, at any material time, have the necessary intention (animus possidendi) to dispossess Pye. The defendants appealed to the House of Lords.
Held: The appeal was allowed.
1. Amid a variety of judicial views, the relevant law had been correctly stated in the judgment of Slade J in Powell v McFarlane (1979) 38 P&CR 452, as approved by the Court of Appeal in Buckinghamshire County Council v Moran [1990] Ch 623. For the purpose of the 1980 Act, a paper owner was “dispossessed” by a squatter where the latter had simply taken possession without the consent of the former. Nothing more was to be read into the expression “adverse possession” as used in para 8(1) of Schedule 1 to the Act. As from the passing of the Real Property Limitation Act 1833, it had been a heresy to reintroduce old notions of non-adverse possession, disseisin or ouster from possession: see the observations of Denman CJ in Nepean v Doe d Knight (1837) 2 M&W 894 at p911 and Culley v Doe d Taylerson (1840) 11 Ad&El 1008 at p1015.
2. The possession of the necessary animus possidendi was, in the normal case, to be inferred where the squatter had occupied the land and made full use of it in the way in which an owner would. There did not have to be an intention to own the land, nor was the requisite intention displaced where, as in the present case, the squatter was willing, if asked, to pay for his occupation: Ocean Estates Ltd v Pinder [1969] 2 AC 19 applied; R v Secretary of State for the Environment, ex parte Davies [1991] 1 PLR 78 disapproved. It was quite wrong to have regard to the intentions of the paper owner: Leigh v Jack [1879] 5 ExD 264 explained.
3. On the evidence accepted at first instance, the Court of Appeal had fallen into error when concluding that JG and MG had continued to use the land in the same way as they had done during the currency of the earlier agreements, and that their intentions were similarly confined. By intending to use the land as they thought best, they manifestly intended to assert their possession against Pye.
Jonathan Gaunt QC, David Pannick QC and Jonathan Small (instructed by Darbys, of Oxford) appeared for the claimants; Kim Lewison QC, Martin Dray and Jane Mulcahy (instructed by Burges Salmon, of Bristol) appeared for the defendants.
Alan Cooklin, barrister
