J.A. Pye (Oxford) Ltd v The United Kingdom (Application no. 44302/02) 30 August 2007
Citation: J.A. Pye (Oxford) Ltd v The United Kingdom (Application no. 44302/02) 30 August 2007
Rule of thumb: Is the non-adverse possession rule a violation of the right to private property? No, the non-adverse possession rule serves a legitimate purpose so cannot be said to be a human rights violation.
Judgment:
the European Court of Human Rights held that the 12 year adverse possession rule as established in Pye v Graham was not a violation of human rights and it fulfilled a legitimate purpose, ‘It is a characteristic of property that different countries regulate its use and transfer in a variety of ways. The relevant rules reflect social policies against the background of the local conception of the importance and role of property. Even where title to real property is registered, it must be open to the legislature to attach more weight to lengthy, unchallenged possession than to the formal fact of registration. The Court accepts that to extinguish title where the former owner is prevented, as a consequence of the application of the law, from recovering possession of land cannot be said to be manifestly without reasonable foundation. There existed therefore a general interest in both the limitation period itself and the extinguishment of title at the end of the period’, at 74
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