Prudential Assurance Company Ltd v Waterloo Real Estate Inc.
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 22 January 1999 |
| Date | 22 January 1999 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
Before Lord Justice Peter Gibson, Lord Justice Robert Walker and Lord Justice Tuckey
Court of Appeal
Adverse possession - party wall - co-owner assuming exclusive possession - conduct unequivocal
For a claimant to establish the necessary intention to possess land by his conduct, that conduct had to be unequivocal in the sense that his intention to possess had been made plain to the world.
The Court of Appeal so stated when dismissing an appeal by Prudential Assurance Company Ltd against a decision of Mr Justice Park in the Chancery Division (The Times May 13, 1998) that Waterloo Real Estate Inc possessed the whole of a seven-metre stretch of wall facing Raphael Street, Knightsbridge, by having
(i) paper title to its northern face, now part of the structure of the Normandie Hotel, and
(ii) enjoyed for more than 12 years possession of its southern face adverse to Prudential, the owner of paper title to its southern face.
Mr Timothy Bowles and Mr Robert Clay for Prudential; Mr Robin Purchas, QC and Mr Guy Newey for Waterloo.
LORD JUSTICE PETER GIBSON, giving the judgment of the court, said that the judge had rightly identified five conditions for Waterloo to satisfy for adverse possession:
(i) the Normandie must have had possession of the southern half of the wall; (ii) that possession must have been exclusive; (iii) the paper owner must have been dispossessed or must have discontinued possession; (iv) the Normandie must have had the intention to possess that half of the wall; and (v) the possession must have been adverse possession in the statutory sense.
Mr Bowles submitted, inter alia, that on condition (iv) the judge was wrong to limit the applicability of Mr Justice Slade's test in Powell v McFarlane ((1979) 38 P & CR 452, 472) to the case of a conscious trespasser.
If, and in so far as the judge was suggesting a different test for a case where there was a trespasser who was not aware that he was trespassing, their Lordships would respectfully disagree with the judge.
That would be inconsistent with the approach of the Court of Appeal in Wilson v Martin's ExecutorsUNK ([1993] 1 EGLR 178).
Mr Purchas submitted that it was only when the conduct of the claimant was equivocal that the requirement to make plain the claimant's intention to the world arose.
Their Lordships thought that the position was simpler than that. For a claimant to...
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Maurice Edward Henwood v Peter Thomas Galton Copeland
...County Council [2004] 1 AC 889, and the decisions of the Court of Appeal in Prudential Assurance Co Ltd v Waterloo Real Estate Inc [1999] 2 EGLR 85, and Lambeth LBC v Blackburn (2001) 82 P & CR 158 For present purposes I begin with JA Pye (Oxford) Ltd v Graham. In that case in 1983 the clai......
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City Developments Ltd v Estate of Syed Allowee bin Ally Aljunied, deceased
...Lot 114-69 Mukim 22, Singapore, Re [2001] 1 SLR (R) 811; [2001] 2 SLR 509 (refd) Prudential Assurance Co Ltd v Waterloo Real Estate Inc [1999] 2 EGLR 85 (refd) R B Wuta-Ofei v Mabel Danquah [1961] 1 WLR 1238 (refd) Shell Eastern Petroleum (Pte) Ltd v Goh Chor Cheok [1999] 3 SLR (R) 236; [20......
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Budhu v Budhu et Al; Chung and Campbell v A.I.C. Battery and Automotive Services Company Ltd ((in Receivership))
...and the intention must be manifested by unequivocal act. Relying on dicta in Prudential Assurance Company Ltd. v. Waterloo Real Estate [1999] 2 E.G.L.R. 85, he argued that the subjective and objective aspects of the intention to possess must be demonstrated by the appellant. In that case Gi......
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The Law Debenture Trust Corporation Plc v Terence Malley and Another
...[1955] P. 336, a decision recently echoed by the Court of Appeal in Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd. v. Waterloo Real Estate Inc. [1999] 17 Estates Gazette 131, at 136. 44 I do not question that principle in relation to ordinary litigation, but I do not regard the analogy as an apt one in the ......