Possessory title – Grazing licences – Applicant landowners refusing to renew licences – Licensees continuing to farm disputed land – House of Lords holding land occupied by adverse possession – Applicants alleging UK law in breach of human rights – Fourth Chamber of European Court of Human Rights upholding complaint by majority – Defendant government referring to Grand Chamber – Whether UK law on adverse possession operating in violation of European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms – Appeal allowed
Between 1975 and 1977, the applicants acquired the disputed land, intending to obtain planning permission for development. From 1977, they entered into seasonal agreements licensing the owners of adjoining property to graze animals. The last such agreement was made on 1 February 1983, whereby the licensee acquired the right to graze the land until the end of that year or to take one cut of grass. Later that year, he agreed to plough and reseed the land. In June 1984, he bought the standing crop of grass for £1,100, and subsequently sent two letters requesting a further licence, which went unanswered.
In 1997, the licensee, relying upon section 15 of the Limitation Act 1980, claimed that he had acquired possessory title and that the applicants were deemed to hold the land in trust for him under the Land Registration Act 1925. The applicants’ claim failed at first instance but succeeded before the Court of Appeal, where it was held that the licensee had not shown the necessary intention to dispossess the applicants. The House of Lords allowed the licensee’s appeal, holding that he had possession of the land in its ordinary sense so that the applicants had been dispossessed within the meaning of the 1980 Act: see JA Pye (Oxford) Ltd v Graham [2002] UKHL 30; [2002] 28 EG 129 (CS).
The applicants complained to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that UK law on adverse possession, by which they had lost their land to a neighbour, operated in violation of their right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions under Article 1 of the First Protocol to the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
The Fourth Chamber upheld that complaint (by four votes to three) holding that although the rule of adverse possession had led to the applicants’ loss of title, but for the provisions of the 1925 and 1980 Acts the adverse possession would have had no effect upon their title or their ability to repossess the land: see JA Pye (Oxford) Ltd v United Kingdom [2005] 3 EGLR 1; [2005] 49 EG 90. The defendant government successfully applied for the case to be referred to the Grand Chamber.
Held: The appeal was allowed (by 10 votes to seven).
The provisions of the 1925 and 1980 Acts that were applied to the applicants were part of the general land law to regulate, inter alia, limitation periods in the context of the use and ownership of land as between individuals. The applicants were affected, not by a “deprivation of possessions”, within the meaning of the second sentence of the first paragraph of Article 1, but by a “control of use” of land within the meaning of the second paragraph.
To extinguish title where the former owner was prevented, as a consequence of applying the law, from recovering possession of land was not manifestly without reasonable foundation. There was a general interest in both the limitation period and the extinguishment of title at the end of that period.
Since the registered land regime in the UK reflected a long-established system in which a term of years’ possession gave sufficient title to sell, such arrangements fell within the state’s margin of appreciation, unless the results were so anomalous as to render the legislation unacceptable. The acquisition of unassailable rights by the adverse possessor went hand in hand with a corresponding loss of property rights for the former owner.
Limitation periods had to apply regardless of the size of the claim. The value of the land could not, therefore, be of any consequence to the outcome, and the fair balance required by Article 1 of the First Protocol to the Convention had not been violated in the present case.
Per Rozakis, Bratza, Tsatsa-Nikolovska, Gyulumyan and Sikuta JJ dissenting: In being deprived of their beneficial ownership of land of which they were the registered owners, the applicants were required to bear an individual and excessive burden that violated their rights under Article 1.
Per Loucaides and Kovler JJ dissenting: It was illogical and disproportionate that the system of adverse possession should punish a registered lawful landowner for not showing sufficient interest in its property and pursuing a squatter who was rewarded by gaining title to the property.
David Pannick QC (instructed by Darbys Solicitors, of Oxford) appeared for the applicants; Jonathan Crow QC (instructed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) appeared for the defendant.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
