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Possession and the law


Doc Holliday
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55 minutes ago, Doc Holliday said:

Just had a discussion with a colleague regarding the title. Can anyone shed light on this as to whether there is any truth in it and if it would actually stand up in a court of law.

As Dave said, its all about context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_is_nine-tenths_of_the_law

You may possess something which is stolen or in dispute by other parties.
But in the context of  'That man owes me money, so I will keep his goods I have in my possession until such time as he pays me the debt' type of scenario, then yes, you may have a case.

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2 hours ago, Doc Holliday said:

Just had a discussion with a colleague regarding the title. Can anyone shed light on this as to whether there is any truth in it and if it would actually stand up in a court of law.

Sorry Doc but you need to be more specific! 

You can possess many things but not OWN them, you can be unlawfully in possession of articles and you can possess articles 5ha belong to everyone or no-one. 

You can also possess and own articles, so without any context your question is rhetorical. ?

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I had claim to some land through adverse possession, that belonged to the council adjacent to my property.

 

They tried to sell it off for development and I enquired about a purchase.  They didn't want that much but I just never got round to buying it.  Anyway, they wrote to me stating a price and a very short deadline if I still wanted to buy it.  I wrote back saying that it's too short notice to afford their price but they could either give me the land for free and I'd pay the legal costs of transfer or I'd claim adverse possession.  They gave me the land for free and I paid the solicitor's fees.  Adverse possession is an awfully complex, drawn out affair.

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51 minutes ago, Gordon R said:

Bede - I had not come across "adverse possession" - thanks.

http://www.johnantell.co.uk/adverse-possession-of-land

No problem.

 

My situation was that my back garden was adjacent to a set of council owned lock up garages.  My garden boundary goes straight down to my rear fences separating my garden from the garden to the house behind.  At the bottom third of my garden to the right, my fences turn right 90 degrees to meet the rear wall of the block of garages.  The land between my straight line boundary and the rear of the garages creates a rectangular patch of land around 5m wide x 10 metres long.  Once upon a time there was a chainlink fence that separated this land from my boundary.  The only access to this small plot was through my back garden.  The garage boundaries are all blocked in by surrounding properties.  The council have never maintained this land in the 14 odd years that my other half had lived there.  The ground was of course overrun by budlia and the like and the chainlink fence had long since been ripped apart by the overgrown jungle.

I initially inquired about adverse possession when I took a digger to it to level the jungle and take control of that section of garden.  I got quite a ****ty response from a council employee initially but she was quickly moved on when talk of legal proceedings began due to their lack of care of the land encroaching my garden.  Upon digging it out, I found it was basically a former dumping ground.  They didn't like me kicking off about their dumping of broken asbestos roofing from the garages and all manner of other rubbish that had pretty much been fly-tipped behind the garages underneath all their undergrowth.

 

So, £1k legal fees later I now have a banging site for a garden office / bar / gym / bike workshop / porn den.

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