Adverse Possession/First Registration

[GeminiRising]

Long time lurker, occasional poster after some advice.

Been living in our house for 22 years. When we moved in we removed a line of trees and put a fence out to what we thought was our border - turns out that there's a strip of land that we have brought inside our boundary which isn't on our deeds.

We are looking to apply for adverse possession which should be easy enough (neighbours are happy to do statements supporting us having maintained the land etc) but having done a search of land registry it appears that this strip of land is not registered and therefore subject to first registration.

I've had a read through Land Registry documents and I'm a bit confused, does anyone know whether when you apply for first registration on a piece of land whether you still have to apply for adverse possession?

Unfortunately, the process is quite complicated. However, I found these linked articles helpful: propertydisputes.lawyer/2022/08/23/what-is-adverse-possession/

Yes. It’s the same process.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/adverse-possession-of-1-unregistered-land-and-2-registered-land/practice-guide-5-adverse-possession-of-1-unregistered-and-2-registered-land-where-a-right-to-be-registered-was-acquired-before-13-october-2003#making-an-application-for-registration-on-the-basis-of-adverse-possession