The court was asked ‘can a man who has got his name registered as the proprietor of a parcel of registered land by wrongly claiming that he had been in adverse possession for ten years hang on to that title if the original proprietor, within 65 days of its being posted to him, failed to fill up and return a form posted to him by the Land Registry? Or can the original proprietor apply to the Registrar to have the register of title rectified by ‘correcting a mistake’? Does the machinery of the Land Registration Act 2002 allow a party to take someone else’s land by operation of a bureaucratic machinery which trumps reality?’ M had purchased a field and been registerd as its proprietor. B used it from time to time to graze his horses and then applied for and was given possessory title, exaggerating the extent of his use. M had failed to respond to the notice served on him. B now appealed against rectification by correction of a mistake.
Held: B’s appeal failed. There was no reason to limit the use of the phrase ‘correction of a mistake’ in the way suggested. B here had had no proper basis for his application. The policy behind the 2002 Act had been to make it more, not less, difficult to obtain possessory title.
Mummery, Jacob, Tomlinson LLJ
[2011] EWCA Civ 120, [2011] 1 WLR 1594
Neutral Citation Number: [2011] EWCA Civ 120, [2011] 20 EG 114, [2011] 2 All ER 574
Bailii
Land Registration Act 2002 Sch 6
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Baxter v Mannion ChD 18-Mar-2010
B appealed against an order for rectification against him of the land register returning ownership to M. B had obtained registration with possessory title, claiming to have kept horses on the field for many years in adverse possession of it. M had . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Registered Land
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.429661
