CASE

Case

Case

The law of adverse possession or 'squatters' rights' is considered by many to be unfair. This rule evolved as method of dealing with uncertain boundaries, but in recent high profile cases it has been used to dispose owners of extremely valuable plots of land. Critics argue that dispossessing the true owner of a piece of land through long occupation goes against the principles of their system of land registration, and indeed Law Commission recently referred to it as 'sanctioning a theft of land'(Clarke, 2003, p34).

Under the old regime, an adverse possessors (subject to certain criteria set out below), simply had to show at least 12 years of continuous occupation of the land to establish a legal title[1]. Furthermore, if it can be proved that the actual owner did not interrupted within that period, automatically he will considered as to be beneficial owner of the land, which was held on trust for him by the paper owner (i.e. the registered proprietor or the holder of the deeds in the case of unregistered land)[2].



This procedure may still available, under the transitional provision of the Land Registration Act 2002 (LRA 2002) to adverse possessors who had already achieved 12 years occupation at the date the act came into force 13 October 2003. This old system clearly cannot be supported in a system of land registration due to the laxity of its nature which simply give the ownership to anyone who adversely possess the land of the actual owner within 12 years. Logically, we can argue that, how can one adversely possess land, which was not their to possess in the first place? Therefore, it is material to reform such regime urgently in order to protect the true owner from the force acquisition(Abbey, 2002, p12).

It has been suggested that the Land Registration Act 2002 heralds major changes to the law and procedures regarding adverse possession. The enforcement of LRA 2002 few years ago significantly changed the law of adverse possession in respect of registered land (the unregistered remains unchanged), making it such harder for a squatter to acquire title. The rights of squatters who had succeeded under the old law were protected for a transitional period (13 October 2003 until 13 October 2006) and by the end of that period, the LRA 2002 will fully implement in this area. However, is it possible for the true owner to have justice under the new law?? It will be discussed later.



As what had been discussed above, the provision under LRA 1925 and the Limitation Act 1980 were considered as unfair to the true owner since he will automatically lost his land without any notice or any rights to object if the squatters can prove that he was occupying the land for 12 years. Furthermore, the squatter only need to establish that he has taken physical possession of the land without the owner's consent[3] and he has the intention to dispossess the true owner (his activity on the land must be different with ...