Limitation of Actions Consultation - Law Commission

in respect of which time will never run until its termination. 45
This was regarded as
anomalous, 46
and the special status of tenancies at will was brought to an end.
6.18 Where a forfeiture or breach of condition has given rise to a right to recover the
land, the right of action will be treated as accruing on the date of the forfeiture or
breach of condition. 47
If the right of action has accrued to someone with a future
interest in the land, and the land is not recovered pursuant to that right, the right
of action will be treated as not accruing until the relevant interest falls into
possession. 48
(2) Adverse Possession
(a) The meaning of adverse possession
6.19 The 1980 Act provides that:
no right of action to recover land shall be treated as accruing unless
the land is in the possession of some person in whose favour the period
of limitation can run (referred to below in this paragraph as “adverse
possession”) 49
6.20 Adverse possession is therefore central to the provisions of the 1980 Act on
limitation periods for the recovery of land. Although the concept of adverse
possession has a long history, and until the nineteenth century was a technical
term of art, 50
it does not receive any more precise definition in the 1980 Act than
the one quoted above. It has therefore fallen to the courts to develop the meaning
of adverse possession, which has given rise to what has been described as “a mass
of authority, some of it conflicting”. 51
6.21 Adverse possession must be continuous throughout the limitation period, and if
the land ceases to be in adverse possession, the right of action will cease to be
treated as having accrued. 52
In practice, it is possible for adverse possession to
come to an end in a number of different ways before the original owner’s title is
extinguished: 53
the owner may reach an arrangement with the person in adverse
possession 54
under which the squatter is permitted to remain, 55
or the squatter
45 See, eg, Cobb v Lane [1952] 1 All ER 1199; Hughes v Griffin [1969] 1 WLR 23; Heslop v
Burns [1974] 1 WLR 1241; Palfrey v Palfrey (1973) 229 EG 648. See para 6.26 below in
relation to licences.
46 See, eg, R E Megarry and H W R Wade, The Law of Real Property (5th ed 1984), p 1039.
47 Schedule 1, para 7(1).
48 Schedule 1, para 7(2).
49 Schedule 1, para 8.
50 R E Megarry and H W R Wade, The Law of Real Property (5th ed 1984), p 1034.
51 A McGee, Limitation Periods (2nd ed 1994), p 211.
52 Schedule 1, para 8(2).
53 See T Prime and G Scanlan, The Modern Law of Limitation (1993), p 186.
54 Who, for the sake of brevity, will be referred to in this section as “the squatter”.
55 This would mean that possession would not be adverse: see para 6.26 below.
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