Land ownership

[Nickypx3]

Hi everyone. I could do with some help as I feel I have gone down every avenue I can think of and am coming up with no answers. We live on a street with a row of terraced houses which is a dead end at the top. Tucked away in the top corner is a little area which is perfect to park my car (we also have parking outside our house big enough for one car) but as we are a two car family, I’d like to claim/buy the piece of land. I have asked the neighbours if they know who it belongs to and nobody has a clue and I have searched title deeds. The Title Register for the area has belonged to the same person since 1984 and none of the neighbours have ever heard of him. I’m really not sure what to do now. Could I just claim it as adverse possession and mark it as private?? Any help it advice would be appreciated. Thank you 😁

It’s an open space accessible by other people.
She can swear all she likes, it’s not provable.

Sorry, are you @BlackPantherPrincess under a different handle?

Apologies, no I’m not.

Well, yes. But just parking there isn’t sufficient to show factual possession. Even couple with trimming the edges - unless she has surveillance or has otherwise fenced off the area she has no idea if other people are accessing the property - they might all be turning their car around there.

A prescriptive easement you mean?

It’s possible - but I think it’s a difficult argument if by parking you are taking up the entirety of the property - or most of it - in such a way that it would prevent anyone else using it. I’d argue that goes beyond an easement - ie a right to use and instead becomes occupation. This was a principle established in Batchelor v Marlow which has been criticised but not overruled.

But to be clear - occupying it for a period doesn’t mean you would be entitled to adverse possession if you don’t have exclusive possession - ie you’ve not excluded everyone else and acted like you own it (going back to factual possession with is a prerequisite of adverse possession). You can occupy on a non-exclusive basis by licence or trespass which is effectively what OP is doing now, so it’s possible to occupy property without having exclusive possession.

Hope that makes sense.

Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as though I was having a go at you.

I'm genuinely interested as to when and to what extent a prescriptive easement can come into existence. Does it need to be exclusive?

Sorry, please forgive me, this is just a total aside to the OP's situation and I don't mean to distract from the thread.

I also don’t know the nature of the road but its not clear if it might be adopted highway aswell. Which is another consideration.

Prescriptive easements are more about rights than occupying, like crossing land, using a gateway. The key point is it’s without the permission of the landowner. So a recent application I did was a rear access my client had been using to access their property, but which belonged to an adjacent property. They could show use going back 40 years.

It’s been explained to you that you can’t just commandeer a piece of land belonging to someone else.

You can with a flag.