The Land Registration Act 2002 includes provisions to make it more difficult for squatters to dispossess proprietors of registered land. They provide that the limitation period prescribed by the Limitation Act 1980 will not run against any party in respect of an estate in land that is registered.
As a result, parties can not rely solely on having been in adverse possession for the requisite period to bar title to registered land. Interestingly, one of the issues in Secretary of State for Transport v Quest Maidstone Ltd [2011] PLSCS 144 was whether the provisions can be construed more widely to prevent a squatter from continuing to rely on the passage of time against the paper owner once land has been registered in its name.
The answer is important if a squatter’s application for first registration is premature because a possessory title is not impregnable. It is susceptible to challenge if the squatter was not in adverse possession for long enough to bar the paper title: see section 11(7) of the 2002 Act. In such circumstances, the squatter may try to combine the periods before and after registration to defeat the paper owner’s claim to the land.
The deputy adjudicator to the Land Registry decided that the squatter and its predecessors in title had never been in adverse possession of the disputed land. It therefore followed that the squatter had not barred the paper title when it was registered in 1997 and that title to the disputed land should be restored to the paper owner.
However, the deputy adjudicator considered whether time could run against the paper owner after 13 October 2003, when the 2002 Act came into force. He ruled that if the intention had been to stop time running only against the registered proprietor, it would have been specified in the Act. Instead, section 96 provides that, once land is registered, time will not run against “any person”. This stops the clock in favour of the paper owner at the time of first registration.
The point of the new regime is that it is not dependent on the operation of the 1980 Act. It would be an anomaly if two different adverse possession regimes were to apply simultaneously to the same land, which was the effect of the squatter’s argument. Therefore, since title to the disputed land was registered when the 2002 Act came into force, the provisions of the 1980 Act ceased to apply – and time ceased to run against the paper owner – with effect from 13 October 2003.
The decision illustrates the danger of prematurely applying for first registration. Squatters should be advised that they are not obliged to apply for first registration before extinguishing the paper title and, if they choose to apply, they are opting into a new and different regime. The rules will stop time running in their favour and registration will make it impossible for them to accumulate sufficient time to bar the paper title.
Allyson Colby is a property law consultant
