Applicants for adverse possession of registered land who rely on the reasonable belief condition in Schedule 6 para 5(4)(c) of the Land Registration Act 2002 must establish 10 years adverse possession ending on the date of the application.
The Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber), allowing an appeal, has considered the reasonable belief condition in Brown v Ridley and another [2024] UKUT 14 (LC).
The Ridleys owned Valley View in Consett, County Durham, which they purchased in 2004. In 2002 Brown had acquired for development an area of uncultivated land which partially bounded Valley View. The dispute concerned a strip of land on the boundary within Brown’s title which had been enclosed and fenced by the Ridleys predecessors in title.
In 2019/2020, the Ridleys constructed a new dwelling – Moonrakers – adjacent to Valley View. The south-west corner of the house encroached into the disputed land to which Brown objected. In December 2019, the Ridleys applied to be registered as proprietors of the land by adverse possession under Schedule 6 para 5(4)(c) of the 2002 Act. This required them to establish that:
- (a) the application land was adjacent to their land;
- (b) the line of the boundary had not been determined;
- (c) for at least 10 years of the period of adverse possession ending on the date of the application they reasonably believed the land belonged to them; and
- (d) the estate was registered more than a year prior to the date of application.
It was agreed that (a) (b) and (d) were met. The First-tier Tribunal decided that (c) should be construed as meaning any 10-year period and not one that must end on or close to the date of application and that the Ridleys had been in exclusive possession of the disputed land since their purchase of Valley View, reasonably believing it to be theirs, until the date of their application.
The UT agreed with the FTT, preferring the linguistic construction of the words “ending on the date of the application” as referring to the period of adverse possession so that the reasonable belief could be demonstrated in any 10-year period. However, the Court of Appeal decision in Zarb v Parry [2012] 1 WLR 1240 was binding authority that it is the 10-year period ending on the date of the application for registration.
There were no grounds for overturning the FTT decision that, from February 2018, the Ridleys no longer maintained a reasonable belief that they owned the land and that their application in December 2019 was not promptly made. The application should be cancelled.
Louise Clark is a property law consultant and mediator
