John Aldis successfully appeals adverse possession application

John Aldis successfully appealed the First Tier Tribunal’s dismissal of his direct access clients’ adverse possession application (Dobson v Unsted [2026] UKUT 93 (LC)).

Upper Tribunal Judge Cooke’s decision has general application to lawn maintenance as an act of factual possession.

Judge Cooke said: “72. In an open-front mown front garden, what an occupying owner might have been expected to do would be to mow the grass and keep it tidy, for their sake and their neighbours’. The appellants’ predecessors in title…did so from when they bought the property in 2002, and no-one else did so. In my judgment that was what was needed to establish adverse possession in this period, both in terms of the relevant conduct and in terms of the objective manifestation of intention.”

You can read the full judgment here >>>.

Press coverage:

The Independent