Leigh v Jack
Acts on land that do not interfere with the owner's intended future use of it were held not to amount to adverse possession, a rule later rejected.
Facts
The owner of land laid out a strip of land as a proposed street, which was never built. Mr Jack, who owned neighbouring land, used the strip for many years to store materials for his factory, and later fenced it off at both ends. The owner's successor sought to recover the strip, and Mr Jack claimed that he had acquired title by adverse possession.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal held that Mr Jack had not acquired title. Bramwell LJ said that acts of user are not enough to take the soil out of the plaintiff and his predecessors in title and vest it in the defendant, where they do not interfere with the use the owner intended to make of the land. The principle that a squatter's possession is not adverse if it is not inconsistent with the owner's intended future use was rejected by the House of Lords in JA Pye v Graham, and by paragraph 8(4) of Schedule 1 to the Limitation Act 1980.
Related cases on adverse possession
- Buckinghamshire County Council v Moran [1990] Ch 623
- Fairweather v St Marylebone Property Co Ltd [1963] AC 510
- Hounslow London Borough Council v Minchinton (1997) 74 P & CR 221
- IAM Group plc v Chowdrey [2012] EWCA Civ 505
- JA Pye (Oxford) Ltd v Graham [2002] UKHL 30, [2003] 1 AC 419
- JA Pye (Oxford) Ltd v United Kingdom (2008) 46 EHRR 45
- Ofulue v Bossert [2009] UKHL 16, [2009] 1 AC 990
- Port of London Authority v Ashmore [2010] EWCA Civ 30, [2010] 1 All ER 1139
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