adverse possession

[didds]

Si as not to derail the other thread i queried in...

so adverse posession needs to be 20+ years use of land, where the owner "has" to have known about it etc etc.

which got me thinking about why a land owner would not prevent such usage given it could lead to losing ownership of that land.

the only things that sprang to mind where

* its such a pointless, tiny bit of land that has no possible benefit, or use and such little effective value is likely so just let it go
* the costs of upkeeping the land far outweigh its effective value then letting somebody else have it is cost effective

Anyhthing else?

And it got me to thinking... could it be a way of keeping land that is valuable but giving an easy "out" if the ownership of that land ended up being "bad" for inheritance tax purposes, or care home fees wotsit? eg a child has adverse possession for > 20 years and that is claimed IF ownership by the parent is not useful for whatever other reasons? ie it may end more "efficient" than inheriting it or gifting it ?

Im not suggesting the use of adverse possession in this manner is a good or bad thing. merely intrigued as to whether that "works"

[Lootman]

I do not know about your ideas, and I personally doubt that a conspiracy between a parent and child to do something like this to escape IHT would pass muster. But there have been a couple of situations where I have considered the topic.

The first was when a neighbour of mine built a (taller) fence next to my fence, about 2 feel into his property. I then removed my fence and so effectively took over that 2 foot strip (about 100 feet long, so 200 square feet in total).

I figured that if, at some much later date, he or a subsequent owner complained and demanded that strip back, I could argue adverse possession. It never happened, and of course most people assume that a fence is the boundary.

The other time was back in the 1970s when I lived in a couple of squats in North London. I never thought about it at the time, and we were never organised about it. But there were many vacant buildings in London at the time and squatters would take them over, sometimes for years.

In those situations the squatters can eventually try and win a claim to the title. My understanding is they have to have been good custodians e.g. pay the council tax, sign up for and pay for the utilities, and so on. The law has changed since then as in the 1970s trespass and squatting were not criminal acts and the only remedies were civil.

[didds]

Good couple of points!

But in both examples, potentially the actual owners wouldn't have known that the "adverse possession" was really occurring. Almost certainly in the case of the fence mularkey - how would they know that you walked that 2m strip every day for 20 metres?

But I like the ideas here (and the squatters thing rings a bell...)

[genou]

It has to be nec vi, nec clam, nec precario aka "without force, without secrecy, without permission". If you reckon HMRC are going to sit still for you or your execs stating that your children/heirs were occupying your land on that basis, good luck.

[Clitheroekid]

Si as not to derail the other thread i queried in...

so adverse posession needs to be 20+ years use of land, where the owner "has" to have known about it etc etc.

No, the law is notoriously complex, but if it's registered land (which most is) then the period is 10 years, and if it's unregistered land the period is 12 years.

However, although the period is shorter for registered land the paper owner is given an opportunity to object to the application for registration, and will often succeed.

which got me thinking about why a land owner would not prevent such usage given it could lead to losing ownership of that land.

the only things that sprang to mind where

* its such a pointless, tiny bit of land that has no possible benefit, or use and such little effective value is likely so just let it go
* the costs of upkeeping the land far outweigh its effective value then letting somebody else have it is cost effective

Anyhthing else?

In the large majority of cases it's because the land owner doesn't realise that adverse possession has taken place. Although this is probably unlikely in the case of a residential property, where the land owner sees his land constantly it can happen very easily in the case of land that is owned by a land owner that owns large quantities of land. Providing the annexation is fairly discreet, and the land isn't being actively used, it's really quite simple to achieve.

However, now that the land owner can object to the registration it's far more difficult to obtain title.

And it got me to thinking... could it be a way of keeping land that is valuable but giving an easy "out" if the ownership of that land ended up being "bad" for inheritance tax purposes, or care home fees wotsit? eg a child has adverse possession for > 20 years and that is claimed IF ownership by the parent is not useful for whatever other reasons? ie it may end more "efficient" than inheriting it or gifting it ?

Im not suggesting the use of adverse possession in this manner is a good or bad thing. merely intrigued as to whether that "works"

No, if it's registered land it probably wouldn't work, as the parent would be expected to contest their child's application for registration. If they didn't, then it would probably be treated as a gift, and the parent might well be facing a hefty capital gains tax bill!