The online resource for UK Property Law

Boundaries and Adverse Possession

You must be logged in to view this content. This content is available on our subscription plans - join today for full access to the legal library

Acknowledgement of title

A person claiming adverse possession who acknowledges the paper owner's title will set time running again. This can mean that he has not run up 12 years adverse possession prior to the coming into force of the Land Registration Act 2002 (13 October 2003); or if the...

read more

Human rights

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights decided (by 10-7) that the English law of adverse possession (as it relates to claims under the law prior to the Land Registration Act 2002) is not incompatible with the Convention. Pye, which lost land under...

read more

Trees and hedges

High hedges Part 8 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 gives local authorities powers to deal with complaints by neighbours in relation to high hedges. A complaint may be made by the owner or occupier of a domestic property on the grounds that his or her reasonable...

read more

Experts

Expert evidence in boundary disputes Childs v Vernon [2007] EWCA Civ 305 There is no new law in the case. However, there is a passage in the judgment that may assist solicitors when drafting a direction relating to a single joint expert or indeed drafting instructions...

read more

Adverse possession

The owner of land can sometimes lose ownership to a trespasser by "adverse possession". The law is complicated: Where the land is unregistered or where the land is registered but the trespasser notched up 12 years adverse possession before 13 October 2003, when the...

read more

Boundary agreements

Introduction If parties to a boundary dispute enter into a compromise the agreement settling the dispute will not be binding if it falls foul of the provisions of s2 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989, which sets out the legal requirements in...

read more

Presumptions

This page is concerned with the hedge to ditch presumption and the hedge to hedge presumption. Hedge and ditch presumption Introduction The presumption is contained in this classic statement:"The rule about ditching is this. No man, making a ditch, can cut into his...

read more

T-marks

Who owns the boundary feature? What do T marks mean? Seeckts v Derwent [2004] EWCA Civ 393 This was a dispute as to position of a boundary turning upon construction of a conveyance that used T-marks on the plan. There was some conflict between those T marks and...

read more

Tidal waters

Foreshore Prescriptive right Lynn Shellfish Ltd v Loose [2016] UKSC 14 Summary The Supreme Court ruled on the extent of an exclusive prescriptive right to take cockles and mussels from a stretch of the foreshore. Facts The proprietor of land adjoining the foreshore...

read more
en_USEnglish