10 Years of Adverse Possession

Following changes made by the Land Registration Act 2002, the general law of adverse possession is that a person who claims to have acquired registered land by adverse possession is, after a period of 10 years adverse possession, entitled to apply to be registered as owner. Detailed provision for such applications is made in Sch.6, 2002 Act. In general terms, the registered owner of the land has two years in which to oppose an application. Where the land in respect of which the application is made is adjacent to land belonging to the applicant, the applicant must show that “for at least ten years of the period of adverse possession ending with the date of the application” the applicant “reasonably believed” that the land belonged to them (Sch.6, para.5, 2002 Act).

In the case of Brown v Ridley [2025] UKSC 7 Mr Brown was the registered proprietor of a substantial piece of rough and undeveloped land. Mr and Mrs Ridley were the registered proprietors of adjacent land. The dispute concerned a strip of land on the boundary which was part of the registered title of Mr Brown, but which, since at least 2004, Mr and Mrs Ridley had been treating as part of their land and on which they had built a house. In 2019, the Ridleys applied to be registered as the owners of the strip by virtue of adverse possession. The FTT found that they had been in adverse possession and had reasonably believed that the land belonged to them between 2004 and 2018. In 2018, they had discovered their mistake and so did not have a reasonable belief after that date.

Mr Brown resisted the application. He contended that “reasonable belief” needed to have lasted for at least 10 years prior to the application and needed still to be held on the date of the application. Mr and Mrs Ridley argued that all that was required was that there was a period of 10 years of adverse possession with the necessary reasonably belief and that it did not matter that the reasonable belief had ended before the application was made. The FTT found for Mr and Mrs Ridley; the Upper Tribunal allowed an appeal but granted permission for a “leapfrog” appeal to the Supreme Court.

The appeal was allowed. An application for the registration of title by adverse possession was not something which “can be put together in an afternoon”. It would usually require significant evidence and professional assistance and, as Mr Brown accepted, would usually take between one and two months to prepare. That made it inherently unlikely that, once a person lost their reasonable belief, Parliament required them to immediately submit their application. The more sensible construction was the one adopted by the FTT, namely that so long as the applicant had the requisite belief for the prescribed period, it did not matter when the application was actually issued.

For adverse possession advice, please contact Oliver Kew at o.kew@hewetts.co.uk

Published on 01/04/2025