Legal Titles in UK Law

What is crucial is to understand that, without the requisite intention, in law there can be no possession. Such intention may be, and frequently is, deduced from the physical acts themselves. But there is no doubt in my judgment that there are two separate elements in legal possession. It is not the nature of the acts which A does but the intention with which he does them which determines whether or not he is in possession.

It was not a case on the effect of first registration nor was it a case of concurrent registrations. It was a case of a purported disposition of registered land that was held not to affect the beneficial ownership of the land, because of the fraud of the transferor. It was held that only the bare legal title passed to the transferee, who was registered as proprietor.

If the law is to attribute possession of land to a person who can establish no paper title to possession, he must be shown to have both factual possession and the requisite intention to possess (" animus possidendi"). A person claiming to have "dispossessed" another must similarly fulfil both these requirements.

Possession is never "adverse" within the meaning of the 1980 Act if it is enjoyed under a lawful title. If, therefore, a person occupies or uses land by licence of the owner with the paper title and his licence has not been duly determined, he cannot be treated as having been in "adverse possession" as against the owner with the paper title.

It is not perhaps immediately obvious why the authorities have required a trespasser to establish an intention to possess as well as actual possession in order to prove the relevant adverse possession. It can only be adverse if the adverse possession is apparent to the owner; that is if it is manifest to the owner that the trespasser intends to maintain possession against the whole world including the owner.

In my judgment the combined effect of (1) the retention of title clause, (2) the period of credit before payment fell due, (3) the permission given to the Owners to consume the bunkers, and (4) the fact that some or all of the bunkers supplied were likely to be consumed before the expiry of the credit period with the consequence that property therein would cease to exist, means that the parties must be taken to have understood that it was likely that title would never be transferred to the Owners.

Secondly, following the 2003 Agreement, the Company has effectively “stepped into the shoes” of NEL and assumed its rights under the 1999 Agreement. On analogy with Re Lashmar (supra), NEL no longer has any duties to perform. It is thus un-necessary for the Company to rely, as Mrs Scott was required to do, on the creation of new rights.