Aplin & Aplin v Sloman

Kayleigh Bloomfield of our Real Estate team was instructed by Thomas Lewis of WBW Solicitors to act for the successful claimants in a claim for possession and a declaration of title by virtue of adverse possession to an unregistered oak woodland.

Factual background to the dispute

1. The claimants purchased a cottage near the woodland the subject of the dispute in the mid-1970’s. Shortly thereafter, the claimants discovered the woodland and began to use and maintain it until late 2022 when the defendant entered the woodland without the claimants’ permission and began to excavate, accumulate waste, cut down trees and even construct a hut on the land.
2. The woodland was unregistered land. The claimants were not the paper title holders to the woodland, nor had they registered themselves as owners by virtue of their adverse possession. The claimants took steps to exclude the defendant from the woodland, by erecting a fence where the defendant had been gaining access to the woodland and displaying signage to indicate that the land belonged to them. The defendant cut down the fence erected by the claimants and used the materials to erect a new fence and a gate which he then fastened with a bicycle chain and displayed his own sign upon. The claimants served the defendant with a notice requiring him to vacate the woodland within 14 days but he failed to do so.
3. The claimants therefore had no option but to commence possession proceedings and seek a declaration of their title to the woodland so that they could thereafter take steps to register that title.

Outcome

4. At the first hearing, the defendant attended and relied upon a defence which was filed but not served on the claimants’ solicitor. The defendant was given an opportunity to amend his Defence and file further witness evidence. The court accepted a submission on behalf of the claimants that the defendant should file all witness evidence on which he intended to rely within the proceedings by the date set out in the order.
5. The second hearing was an adjourned hearing for the purposes of CPR 55.8(1). The court could therefore decide the claim or give further case management directions. The summary judgment test is embedded in CPR 55.8(2): see Global 100 Ltd v Laleva [2021] EWCA Civ 1835, Lewison LJ stated: “in my judgment the test for summary judgment is the same test as that which applies to the required threshold under CPR Part 55.8(2)…The question, then, is whether the defendant has shown a real prospect of success in defending the claim.” Thus, if the court is not satisfied that a defence would survive an application for summary judgment, it should decide the claim and not give further directions to trial.
6. It was successfully argued that the court should decide the claim on a summary basis at the adjourned first hearing, where the claimants’ claim succeeded in full and a cost order secured. An order sufficient to enable the Land Registry to register the claimants as the owners of the woodland was drafted and approved following the hearing and the claimants have now been registered as such following an expedited application.

You can read the full article here where Kayleigh and Thomas discuss the points of interest about the case and provide some practical tips on running more complex possession claims.