Manchester Conveyancing Solicitors | Ford Banks Irwin Solicitors - The Property Lawyers in Manchester for Transfer / Lease of Business Premises
Please note: Not to be used or relied upon without legal advice. These notes are for illustration purposes ONLY
continued from page 15 . . .
Adverse Possession of Unregistered Land and Registered Land where a right to be registered was acquired before 13 October 2003
The Limitation Period
The normal period
Section 15(1) Limitation Act 1980 states:
"No action shall be brought by any person to recover any land after the expiration of twelve years from the date on which the right of action accrued to him or, if it first accrued to some person through whom he claims, to that person"
The right of action accrues, and so the limitation period starts to run, from the start of the adverse possession. ((Schedule 1 paragraphs 1 and 8 Limitation Act 1980).
The extended periods
The time limit of 12 years is extended to 30 years for the Crown. This then is the relevant limitation period when the owner is a Company that has been dissolved; the Property of such a Company bests in the Crown or one of the Royal Duchies as bona vacantia. (Companies Act 1985 section 685. If time starts to run against a Company which is then dissolved before the 12 years have expired, the limitation period will become 30 years from the start of the adverse possession.) Conveyancing Solicitors and Property Lawyers should, therefore, consider a Company search where the owner is a Company.
The limitation period is 30 years for any spiritual corporation sole (bishops, vicars and certain other office holders of the Church of England). The 12 year period applies, however, to Corporations aggregate, such as the Church Commissioners, a diocesan trust, or one of the Oxford or Cambridge colleges. Where the Property is foreshore owned by the Crown, the period is 60 years. The normal 12 year period applies to foreshore owned by parties other than the Crown.
The normal limitation period may also be prolonged by disability of the person entitled to recover the Property, by fraud or deliberate concealment of a cause of action, and by mistake. A person is to be treated as under a disability while an infant (ie under the age of 18), or of unsound mind. Land Registry will assume that none of these factors apply unless the evidence indicates otherwise.
Where the Property is hold on trust the estate of the trustees continues, even after the expiry of the limitation period against them, until the rights of action of all the beneficiaries have been barred. Where there is some indication that trustees hold the land on trust for beneficiaries other than themselves, Land Registry are unlikely to be able to register with anything other than a qualified title unless the squatter can establish details of the trust and can prove that the rights of action of all the beneficiaries have been barred.
Time does not run against one beneficiary while another beneficiary is in possession of the Property.
What stops time running?
For the purposes of the Limitation Act 1980, a period of adverse possession can be brought to an end by a signed, written acknowledgment of the owner's title by the squatter and a written acknowledgment by the agent of the squatter is as effective as one signed personally by the squatter. A written offer by the squatter to purchase the Property from the owner is treated as an acknowledgment. (Edginton -v- Clark [1964] 1 QB 367).
If the squatter remains in possession after the acknowledgment then time may start running again. But it will not start running if the acknowledgment results in a change in the relationship between the squatter and the owner (for example, the grant of a Lease or a Licence) so that the possession is no longer adverse.
Once the limitation period has expired, any subsequent acknowledgment does not revive the owner's right of action. (section 29(7) Limitation Act 1980).
A demand for possession from the owner does not stop time running. Nor does the mere issuing of proceedings which are later dismissed, or the making of related applications or objections to Land Registry.
Successive Squatters
The squatter can pass on their interest in the Property, for example to a purchaser or under a Will or Intestacy. The purchaser etc needs immediately to follow the original squatter into possession and hold for the remainder of the 12 years.
. . . continued on page 17 (Manchester Conveyancing Solicitors Property Lawyers for Transfer or Lease of Business Premises 17)
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