Brown v Ridley: Supreme Court provide long-awaited clarification on the ten year rule

The recent Supreme Court decision in Brown v Ridley & Ridley provides welcome clarification to the rules on adverse possession.

Under Schedule 6 paragraph 5(4) Land Registration Act (LRA) 2002, to successfully establish a claim for adverse possession, (and where the affected land is adjacent to land already owned by the applicant) the applicant must satisfy four requirements and specifically for the purposes of this case that  “for at least ten years of the period of adverse possession ending on the date of the application, the applicant (or any predecessor in title) reasonably believed that the land to which the application relates belongs to him”.

The question for the Supreme Court was whether the ten years of reasonable belief of ownership, had to be the ten years up to and immediately prior to the date of the application.

The Ridleys and Mr Brown owned adjoining parcels of land in County Durham. The Ridleys’ predecessor in title had erected a fence and planted a hedge where they believed the boundary between the two neighbouring properties to be.   All was seemingly well, until a planning application for the development of the Ridleys’ land in 2018, caused a dispute to arise between the neighbours over who owned a strip of land enclosed within the Ridleys’ garden.

At first instance, the First Tier Tribunal ruled in favour of the Ridleys, on the basis that the Ridleys reasonably believed they owned the parcel of land until February 2018 (when the dispute arose between the neighbours). This was some twenty-one months prior to the Ridelys making their application to the Land Registry for adverse possession of the land.

On appeal, The Upper Tribunal concluded that they were constrained in their decision by the earlier Court of Appeal decision of Zarb v Parry [2011]. Zarb came to the contrary decision, that the correct interpretation of the statutory provision required the ten-year period of belief of ownership to continue up until the point at which the application for adverse possession was made.

The Supreme Court decision

Allowing a leapfrog appeal, bypassing the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court unanimously held that the wording of the LRA 2002, meant that any ten-year period of reasonable belief of ownership was sufficient. It was not necessary for the ten-year period of belief to end on the date that the application to the Land Registry was made.

The Supreme Court’s judgment recognised the inevitable impracticality of expecting an applicant ever being able to prepare and apply for adverse possession on the very day that their reasonable belief came to be challenged by the true owner of the land.

The Supreme Court decision also acknowledged that to adopt the approach in Zarb would only encourage reactive litigation between neighbours and do little to encourage the instruction of expert surveyors to assist with the early determination of disputes by alternative dispute resolution.

How we can help

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