Station Road, Sidcup
Close

How can we help?

Please fill in this form and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Please enter your name
Please enter your email address
Please enter your telephone number
Please enter a question
Please let us know how you heard about us
Please enter the verification code

We’ll only use this information to handle your enquiry and we won’t share it with any third parties. For more details see our Privacy Policy

Property Dispute Looming? Now is the Moment to Seek Professional Advice

A word out of place can lead to the sacrifice of valuable legal rights and that is why it is vital to seek professional advice the moment a potential dispute looms on the horizon. The point was made by the case of a couple who faced a challenge to their ownership of two plots of land adjoining their home.

The couple bought the land on which they built their home in 1993. Although they did not formally own the adjoining plots, they treated them as their own, using them as their drive and as part of their garden. In 2018, the registered owner of the plots asserted that the couple had encroached onto them unlawfully.

After a hearing, the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) found that the couple were entitled to be registered as the plots' legal owners. It did so on the basis that they had established so-called squatters' rights over the plots, having enjoyed unhindered possession of them, as of right, for more than 10 years.

The FTT found that they genuinely believed that the plots formed part of the land they had purchased in 1993. On the basis of that belief, they had acted to their detriment in spending substantial sums of money on incorporating the plots into their property.

Challenging that outcome, the registered owner pointed to prior email and telephone correspondence in which offers and counter-offers were made with a view to the couple purchasing the plots. The correspondence was said to indicate that the couple held no genuine belief that they owned the plots.

Dismissing the appeal, however, the Upper Tribunal found that the correspondence benefited from litigation privilege and had thus rightly been excluded from evidence by the FTT. Given the accusation of encroachment that the registered owner had made, the correspondence was redolent with controversy and the potential for subsequent litigation was by then already obvious.

The contents of this article are intended for general information purposes only and shall not be deemed to be, or constitute legal advice. We cannot accept responsibility for any loss as a result of acts or omissions taken in respect of this article.