Becoming the owner of land based on adverse possession

Squatting or trespassing is when someone deliberately enters onto property or land without permission and occupies that land. This is also sometimes known as adverse possession.

Squatting in a residential building is illegal. If you are found to have committed this crime, you can be sentenced to up to 6 months in prison, a £5,000 fine, or both.

If someone enters property or land without the permission of the land owner, that is trespass; however, if the occupier did originally enter the land with the permission of the land owner, then they are not squatters.

If you rent a property and fall behind on rent payments, you are not squatting if you continue to live there because you were given permission to be there in the first place.

There are many situations when trespass can occur. For example:

• You may be a commercial business occupier and remain in occupation of the property when your lease ends (and you had a lease that was contracted out of the 1954 Landlord and Tenant Act).
• You replace a fence or wall in your garden, don't put it back on the original boundary line, and inadvertently include land that does not belong to you within the new boundary feature causing a boundary dispute.
• You discover that when your property was originally built, parts of your property, such as the gutters or eaves, overhang the legal boundary line and trespass onto next door's property.
• You decide to extend your property, and inadvertently, the extension to your property breaches the legal boundary line, resulting in trespass.
• You decide to store your bins or park on land you know you do not own for a prolonged period.

Many people will be familiar with the concept that if you have used land exclusively for a period of time, you can apply to HM Land Registry to become the owner of that land. This is commonly known as squatters' rights, and before the introduction of the Land Registration Act 2002 ("LRA"), you could apply for ownership if they had been in exclusive occupation and possession for a period of 12 years.

If you think that you have been occupying land that you did not own for a period in excess of 10 years, and, throughout that period, you have not allowed anybody else to use or access the property, you might be able to apply to have title to that land registered in your own name.

Since the introduction of the Land Registration Act 2002, if the period of exclusive use and occupation is over 10 years, adverse possession means that a squatter can apply to become the owner of the land.

How to become the owner of the land

The first thing to do would be to write to the land owner, if there is one, and set out that you have exclusively used and occupied the land for more than 10 or 12 years and invite them to consent to your Land Registry application to become the new owner.  Assuming that is ignored or your claim is rejected, you would need to apply to HM Land Registry. They would then send a copy of the application to the registered owner of the land, and they would have the chance to object. 

If the objection is maintained and the parties cannot agree to a settlement, ultimately, the Property First Tier Tribunal may have to decide whether the application can succeed or whether it has to be rejected.

What would I have to prove to succeed?

Adverse possession has two essential elements. The first is a demonstration of factual possession of the land, and the second is the necessary intention to possess the land without the true owner's consent.

Factual possession means that you will need to be able to demonstrate an appropriate degree of physical control of the land.  The question of what constitutes a sufficient degree of exclusive physical control will depend on the circumstances, but broadly, you have to show that you have been dealing with the land as an occupying owner would have done so and that no one else has.

It is common for the adverse possessor to enclose the land that they do not own as part of their own land and to exercise control over the land.

One of the first things that a property dispute solicitor is likely to ask about in an adverse possession case is the extent of the enclosure that the adverse possessor has constructed or organised. In many successful adverse possession cases, it is the act of enclosure that has allowed the application to succeed.

Recent adverse possession case law

However, in a recent case decided in 2025, Kirkman v Bradshaw Pub Co Limited, the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) stressed the importance of taking a holistic approach when considering an application for adverse possession and determined that the enclosure of land is not an essential element for success.

The facts of the case were that Mr Kirkman applied for the first registration of land to the south side of Wells Heads, near Bradford, in April 2021. The land included a pair of dilapidated stone domestic houses, known as the Privy and the Washhouse, a narrow yard between the two buildings, and an area behind the Privy called Ashes Places.

The buildings were accessed by doors opposite each other across an outside area of only 8ft, slightly wider than a standard car parking space. The outside area opened onto the road, but otherwise, it and Ashes Places were enclosed by the walls of the two buildings and the two-metre-high stone boundary wall. Mr Kirkman purchased the Privy and a couple of the cottages in September 1998. In 2019, the Bradshaw Pub Company purchased one of the cottages as a holiday rental, and it objected to Mr Kirkman's application for first registration to the outside area, claiming they had the right to use it.

To succeed with his adverse possession application, Mr Kirkman needed to demonstrate factual possession of the land and the intention to possess it for the 12-year period preceding his application, as it was unregistered land. He needed to demonstrate that he had been dealing with the land as an occupying owner might have done, and that no one else had done so, with the intention of excluding the true paper owner from possession and occupation. Mr Kirkman gave evidence to the Tribunal that he was given the key to the padlock to the Washhouse door in 1998 and that he did not think anybody else had a key. He had paid the electricity bill since 1988 and had used it to store equipment and materials from 1988 until 2019. Additionally, he had parked a trailer in the area outside since 2007.

In this case, the Court found that the issue was not whether Mr Kirkman had made use of the outdoor area because, on his own evidence, he clearly had, but whether that use amounted to adverse possession. The first judge was satisfied that 12 years of adverse possession of the Washhouse had been established, but Mr Kirkman could not establish the necessary physical control of the outside area because it was not enclosed along its edge with the road.

An appeal was therefore issued to the Upper Tribunal, which overturned the original judge's decision. They thought that the judge had erred by dividing the site into separate components, which he considered independent of each other. They thought the correct approach was to consider the land which Mr Kirkman claimed to be in possession of as a whole and how the degree of control demonstrated over each of the areas reflected on the control of the remainder.

The Tribunal held that the Washhouse and the Privy were very close to one another, and both had been entered directly from the open area. They opined that anybody using the Washhouse as storage would necessarily use the open area for access. They conceded that padlocking the door of the Washhouse did indicate the required exercise of control over the building itself and of the areas immediately outside it and within the restricted outside area which had been used as storage for the trailer and building materials.  They felt that it was obvious that someone had secured the Washhouse and was also using the rest of the land. The natural inference to be drawn was that it was the same person in both cases.

The Tribunal also then looked at the fact that the judge had insufficiently regarded the practicalities of possession of the open area and Ashes Places. They felt that the judge had overstated the importance of enclosing the area to demonstrate physical control. They decided that if the area was small and enclosed all around almost the whole of its boundary, then an assessment of what was practical was the important factor. Here, the opening onto the road was obviously intended as access.  So, a fence or wall across 2.5 meters would have been of little use. If left open, it risked blocking either the footway, road or the doorways to the buildings and interfering with the use of the open area for parking. The appeal was therefore allowed, and the Tribunal decided that Mr Kirkman had used the group of buildings openly as an occupying owner would. Putting all the facts together, his intention to possess could readily be inferred.

In terms of the intention to possess, you do not have to demonstrate an intention to own or have intended to acquire ownership of the land.  What is important is that you can show that the possession has been adverse, i.e., the land owner has never given any permission for your use or occupation.

How to apply? 

An application must be made to the HM Land Registry on form ADV1 accompanied by a statement of truth or declaration that meets the requirements.  If you think that you have adversely possessed the land, you should promptly apply to avoid any argument that you have not acted quickly enough.

The application will also need to include supporting evidence demonstrating your adverse possession of the land for at least 10 years.