ABSTRACT
The law of adverse possession is something of a peculiarity in English law. It is, in effect, a set of rules that offers an opportunity1 to a mere trespasser actually to acquire a better title to land than the person who ‘legally’ owns it and to whom it was once formally conveyed with all the solemnity of a deed or registered disposition. In fact, adverse possession is rooted in the feudal origins of English land law for it is the most obvious modern example of the ‘relativity of title’ that once lay at the heart of the doctrine of estates. Given that in English law no person may own land itself – only an estate in it – it is in theory perfectly possible for someone other than the ‘paper’ or ‘formal’ owner to gain a better title without any formal transfer of ‘ownership’. A person’s title to land, including the paper owner’s, is, as a matter of theory, only as good as the absence of a person with a better title. However, as we shall see, this justification for adverse possession is fast becoming out of date. Although it remains the case under the Land Registration Act (LRA) 2002 that a person is still registered with an estate – not with the land itself 2 – registration as proprietor under the 2002 Act is a more absolute guarantee of ownership than anything that has gone before. There is still room for alteration of the register, and adverse possession of a registered title is not impossible – just impossibly difficult – but registration of a person as proprietor under the LRA 2002 is the closest thing in over 900 years to absolute ownership of land. This has led to a radical overhaul of the law of adverse possession as it applies to registered land and this must be remembered in the ensuing discussion. It is dealt with more fully below.
