A dispute over the ownership of 57 acres of potential development land in Berkshire has moved to the Court of Appeal.
Oxford-based development companies JA Pye (Oxford) Ltd and JA Pye (Oxford) Land Ltd are challenging a High Court ruling in February in which Neuberger J held that farmer Michael Graham had acquired a right to the land by 12 years adverse possession ([0] PLSCS 23).
Graham died in a shooting accident in 1998, but his widow Caroline and her father, Graham Denton, are claiming the land as his personal representatives.
The land, worth millions, is on the outskirts of Henwick, Thatcham, in one of the most desirable parts of the Berkshire stockbroker belt. Pye acquired it as part of a 230 acre site between 1975 and 1977, with the intention of developing it.
In the meantime, between 1977 and 1984, it granted Graham grazing licences in respect of 57 acres. After 1984, it refused to grant further licences, but Graham continued to use the land and maintain it as pasture, and in 1997 he applied to register cautions against Pyes titles on the basis of a claim of adverse possession.
In the Court of Appeal today, Jonathan Gaunt QC, counsel for Pye, argued that there was no “dispossession” of the companies sufficient for Grahams claim to succeed. He contended that dispossession occurred where “the squatter comes in and drives out the true owner from possession”, and that there had been no act by Graham to oust Pye from possession of the land.
Nor, he said, had there been any such intention on Grahams part. Graham had actively offered to take a grazing licence, which was, in his contention, an act wholly inconsistent with Graham dispossessing Pye or intending to do so as far as he could.
David Pannick QC, also appearing for Pye, argued that the High Court decision breached Pyes right to property, as guaranteed by Article 1 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, now protected by the Human Rights Act 1998. Depriving Pye of its land by adverse possession was, he said, disproportionate to any legitimate public interest and breached the fair balance required between the interests of the appellants and the interests of society as a whole.
The hearing continues.
JA Pye (Oxford) Ltd and another v Graham Court of Appeal (Nourse, Mummery and Keene LJJ) 4 December 2000
Jonathan Gaunt QC, David Pannick QC, Monica Carss-Frisk and Jonathan Small (instructed by Darbys Mallan Lewis, of Oxford) appeared for the appellants; Kim Lewison QC and Martin Dray (instructed by Burges Salmon, of Bristol) appeared for the respondents.
PLS News 5/12/00
