Cases - Williams v Usherwood
Record details
- Name
- Williams v Usherwood
- Date
- [1983]
- Citation
- 45 P & CR 235
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Adverse possession - fencing of land - enclosure of land by fence or wall - animus possidendi - use of land to park cars or vehicles - parking in enclosed curtilage of dwelling-house - eaves and drains - maintenance of paving - whether belief that land belongs to adverse possessor prevents adverse possession - whether adverse possession of driveway without dispossessing paper owner of eaves and drains - abandonment of right of way - Limitation Act 1939, section 10 - easements
- Summary
-
Two houses were built with a shared driveway. Ownership of the driveway was split, and each of the owners given rights of way over that part of the driveway in the other's ownership. Because of the layout of the houses, the driveway was only of practical use to one owner, who (in 1935) erected a fence separating the entire driveway from the other house. The owners of the dominant tenement never exercised the right of way as such. Ownership of the dominant tenement changed in 1937 and both owners thereafter treated the fence as the boundary between the properties. The Court of Appeal held that in those circumstances the defendant had acquired adverse possession of that part of the driveway not already owned by him, and that the plaintiff's predecessor in title had abandoned the right of way in about 1937 when she evinced an intention only to use an alternative driveway for access to her property.
Cultivating or parking on land can evidence possession for adverse possession.