A legal precedent against the 12 year rule on claiming adverse possession? However, I thought the 12 year law had been subsumed by the Land Registration Act of a few years ago
I don't know what's more depressing - the legal implications, or the Conservative Harrovian Editorial below it. I will be writing a strongly worded response for their letters page. Outstanding one-liners and venomous rebuttal of the lame intellectual dishonesty and sneeringly right-wing assumptions of the editorial would be greatly appreciated.

signed, a disgruntled transitory part-time "Harrovian"(not all Harrovians are from Harrow School btw).


Landmark case evicts squatter cows
By James Brockett
The Harrow Times
31st March 2005


A HARROW legal team has won a landmark ruling on behalf of a Wembley firm which challenges previous laws over so-called "squatter's rights".

Beaulane Properties Ltd, based in Wembley Hill Road, had been locked in a dispute with farmer Terence Palmer over a two-and-a-half acre field near Heathrow Airport. They owned the field for more than a decade, but had left it unused, hoping to take advantage of future planning regulations. Meanwhile, neighbour Mr Palmer had grazed cattle on the land since 1986.

Under the law of "adverse possession" an illegal occupant of a property can still claim its title if they stay on the land for more than 12 years without the owner taking steps to evict them. However, Vyman Solicitors, acting for Beaulane, successfully argued that this was not compatible with the Human Rights Act 1998. In a decision which could have wind-ranging consequences, the Judge agreed, saying that for Beaulane to lose the land would be "disproportionate".

Jeremy Berg of Vyman Solicitors said: "The case is unique in English Law. It illustrates how the Human Rights Act can be used to bring about a just outcome which would not otherwise have been achievable.The result is a tribute to the work of Counsel, Peter Knox, and to the efforts which have been made by the legal team involved, namely Peter, Anup Vyas and me.

"I am delighted at this outcome, especially since the land at the heart of the dispute is potentially extremely valuable (with planning permission, it may be worth over £1,000,000) and of great importance to our client, Mr Naresh Patel."

It is believed to be the first time that the Human Rights Act, which came into effect in 2000, has been used in this country to intervene in private property disputes.


4:57pm Thursday 31st March 2005

Ref:  http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/localnews/display.var.584041.0.landmark_case_evicts_squatter_cows.php

Comment:

Until the cows come home
Harrowvians must be feeling especially proud this week as our fine borough again enters the history books.

As we report, a local firm of solicitors has helped set a legal precedent by winning a ruling from a judge in the Royal Courts of Justice that the much maligned (in some circles at least) Human Rights Act supersedes the ancient principle of "squatters' Rights".

Landlords the length of the realm are cheering to hear the news that for legal owners to lose their property to someone who has managed to keep hold of it for 12 years would be "disproportionate".

Of course this so-called "adverse possession" could be avoided if the owner took steps to take back control of their property by evicting the squatters. In most cases this surely happens. But there are times when for good reason the squatters go unchallenged until it is too late.

The judge's decision is both just and sensible, although it is sad that no British government sought to end this anomoly and it was left to the court to do so using a law essentially imposed on this country by the EU.

But it is the result that counts.

There will however be those who do not welcome this move, among them those who champion squatters' rights over those of legal owners.

Some will argue that a landlord who takes so little interest in his property that he ignores it for 12 years, allowing others to take it over, care for, maintain and sometimes improve it, deserves to lose it.

And what about the "animal rights" brigade?

You can be sure that somewhere this legal ruling is being met with cries of what about the cows?" And what about the poor cows indeed?

We don't know how lush the disputed pasture in the shadow of Heathrow airport is (although one can make a shrewd guess).

But those who firmly believe that dumb animals are entitled to exactly the same legal rights as humans will be complaining that the interests of the bovine squatters were not taken into account by the court.

One thing is a cast iron certainty: this ruling is not the last the courts will hear of the issue.

Lawyers will be rubbing their hands with glee, like their landlord clients, looking forwards to the many years of lucrative work that lie ahead.