The court will not look at who is the true owner of the land instead they will
look at the two competing claims and the who has the best claim (Thus the
most recent possessor of the property) will be favoured by the court (Nicholls
V Ely Beet Sugar Factory [1931] and Mount Carmel Investment Ltd v Peter
Thurlow Ltd [1988])
The three things which the new possessor must show:
1. Factual possession
a. Powell v Macfarlane (1970) - “appropriate degree of physical control
to amount to possession in fact?”, thus the idea of what he does on
the land to show possession
b. Red House Farms (thornden) Ltd v Catchpole [1977] where the
shooting of wildfowls was enough because that is the only thing one
could do on that particular land.
c. Trivial acts such as recreational use will not suffice: Tecbuild Ltdv
Chamberlain. Unless trivial act is the only sensible use of the land:
Mayor of London Borough of Hounslow v Minchinton.
d. Boosey v Davis (1987) - Adverse possession is dependant upon
dispossession of the owner, and the grazing of goats and erection
of a fence are insufficient for this.
e. Treloar v Nute (1976) - possession must necessarily cause an
nconvenience or annoyance to the paper owner
f. Seddon v Smith (1950) - “Enclosure is the strongest possible
evidence of adverse possession,”
g. West Bank Estates v Arthur, Pye v Graham - Objective rather than
subjective test: resources and status of the individual parties
irrelevant:
2. Animus Possidendi
a. Powell v Macfarlane (1970) - intention to possess the land to
exclude others
b. Prudential Assurance Co Ltd v Waterloo Real Estate Inc [1999]
states that the claimant must, of course, be shown to have the
subjective intention to possess the land, but he must also show by
his outward conduct that that was his intention.
c. Buckinghamshire County Council v Moran [1990] – locking a
padlock was seen to suffice to exclude all others. Furthermore the
squatter must show that the land was used to his own advantage.
d. Pye v Graham [2003] the emphasis of both; factual and intentional
possession. Grazing horses and cutting the hay was seen as the
factual possession.
e. Lodge v Wakefield - The requirement is to possess the property not
to acquire the property
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