Supreme Court ruling clarifies law on adverse possession

A landmark Supreme Court judgment has clarified a key area of the Land Registration Act 2002 where it applies to disputes relating to adverse possession claims. 

With many hundreds of claims made each year in the UK under adverse possession, Poppy Pain, from Coodes’ Disputes Resolution team, looks at the implications of the recent ruling. 

What is adverse possession?

Adverse possession is a legal process that allows someone to claim ownership of land or property based on their occupation, use or control of that parcel of land for a period of 10 years or more. 

It allows the claimant, known as the squatter, after 10 years of adverse possession, to apply to the Land Registry to be registered as proprietor, in place of the currently registered proprietor of the land.  

You won’t be surprised to learn that the law is complex in this area. It is also subject to a number of conditions, including the right of the registered owner to oppose any application. The Supreme Court has now clarified one of the more technical aspects of adverse possession relating to registered land, which has been unclear since the Land Registration Act came into force in 2003. 

The case 

The case of Brown v Ridley [2025] UKSC 7 concerned a strip of land between the Ridleys’ home, Valley View, and neighbouring land owned by Brown. 

The Ridleys believed they owned the disputed strip. This was because of the apparent boundary between their garden and the Brown land when they moved there in 2004. The boundary consisted of a picket fence and leylandii hedge. This resulted in them unknowingly adversely possessing the land, using it first as part of their garden and later for building a new house, which they subsequently moved into. 

However, during the new house’s planning process in 2018, evidence emerged that the boundary was not as assumed. In December 2019 the Ridleys made an application for registration as owners of the disputed land by adverse possession. This was opposed by Brown. 

The initial hearing

At initial hearing, the First-tier Tribunal ruled in favour of the Ridleys. However, this was overturned on appeal to the Upper Tribunal. This led to a further appeal by the Ridleys and the case coming before the Supreme Court. 

At the core of the Ridleys’ submission was that they had been in adverse possession of land adjacent to their own under the mistaken but reasonable belief that they were the owner of it for the required 10 years – which would satisfy conditions in paragraph 5 of Schedule 6 of the Land Registration Act 2002. 

The lower court accepted that the Ridleys’ reasonably believed they owned the disputed strip from 2004 until around February 2018 (14 years), initially ruling in their favour and ordering that HM Land Registry register the Ridleys as owners. 

However, the 21-month gap between the Ridleys becoming aware of a potential boundary issue and when their application to register ownership of the land was made in December 2019 led the Upper Tribunal to reverse this following an appeal by Brown. 

The Supreme Court ruling 

The Supreme Court’s decision was to allow the appeal against the Upper Tribunal ruling by the Ridleys. Therefore restoring the First-tier Tribunal’s decision that they were entitled to be registered as proprietors of the disputed land. 

The judgement is significant in clarifying the law here and hinged around the way in which the following sentence should be interpreted – with the Judge adding the italics for emphasis: 

… 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 belonged to him… 

Counsel for Brown argued for a narrow interpretation requiring reasonable belief of at least 10 years ending on the date of the application. 

For the Ridleys, Counsel contended for a more lenient interpretation, namely that the period of reasonable belief could be any period of at least 10 years within the potentially longer period of adverse possession which ended on the date of the application. 

Lord Briggs, in his Judgment, had to consider the original intention of legislators together with the impracticality of requiring an application to be made immediately on discovery of an issue, especially given the complex nature of such cases and the likely time needed for surveys, and professional and legal advice in preparing an application. 

The ruling therefore clarifies that the requirement that the applicant reasonably believes the land belongs to them should be construed as allowing any 10 year period of reasonable belief within the overall period of adverse possession, rather than requiring the belief to persist right up until the date of the application. 

Support with adverse possession

This case will have broader implications for property law and the handling of similar cases in the future, ensuring consistency and legal certainty in the adjudication of adverse possession disputes. 

For support and expert advice on adverse possession and other land and property disputes, contact Coodes’ personal disputes team. Email info@coodes.co.uk or call 0800 328 3282.