Adverse possession is a legal principle that allows a person to acquire ownership of land or property by occupying it for a specified period of time, in a certain way and without the permission of the legal owner. Here, Joana Daraskeviciute, a specialist property dispute solicitor at our Margate office, explains the meaning of this legal principle and how it works.

Many people find this to be a strange concept. Why should someone become legally entitled to land that is not theirs, simply because they have helped themselves to possession of it? To some people’s minds, this seems, at first glance, to be nothing more than a kind of legalised theft.

The origins of this concept go back many centuries and lie in the idea that it is in the interests of society that someone who buys a piece of land should have confidence in the seller’s ability to sell it to them, without having to require proof of title to the land – a “chain of ownership” – going back to time immemorial.

To give an example, if you were buying a house, you would want to be sure that you were getting good title to all the land included in the sale from the person who was selling it to you, without having to worry about other people raising claims against it, possibly based on events that happened hundreds of years earlier. If there were not this certainty in the law, it would be a recipe for chaos in the housing market and in the property market more widely.

The principle of adverse possession is based on the idea that if the true owner does not assert their rights to the property within a certain timeframe, it would be unjust to allow them to reclaim it.

For adverse possession to apply, several conditions must typically be met. One of these conditions is that the occupier must physically possess the land in question. The occupier’s possession must be exclusive and without the owner’s permission and in a manner that is contrary to the owner’s rights.

The occupier must maintain uninterrupted possession of the land for a specific period of time, which is usually 10 to 12 years depending on whether the land is registered or unregistered. The occupier must also have the intention to possess the land as if they were the true owner.

The law in this area is complex, and each case depends on its own facts. There are important time limits. Various different procedures apply to claims for adverse possession depending on whether the land in question is registered or unregistered.

Joana Daraskeviciute can be contacted on 01843 234000 or by email.