Ellen Michelle Short v Jane Pascoe

Facts

The applicant, Ellen Michelle Short, applied to HM Land Registry in November 2022 for registration as proprietor of two parcels of land at the rear and side of 54 Elm High Road, Wisbech, on the basis of adverse possession. The first parcel, the "Disputed Land", forms part of the former Wisbech canal and lies within registered title NK398552, which the respondent, Jane Pascoe, and her former husband bought from Norfolk County Council in 2010; the second, the "Side Land", is an unregistered strip at the side of No. 54. The applicant's case was that the land at the rear had been used as the garden of No. 54 continuously since her mother bought the property in 1996, title passing to the applicant and her sister in 2001. The respondent objected and gave notice under paragraph 3 of Schedule 6 to the Land Registration Act 2002, requiring the applications to be dealt with under paragraph 5 of Schedule 6 to the Land Registration Act 2002. It emerged in the proceedings, after the respondent obtained evidence from private investigators, that a family named the Winsors had been the primary occupants of No. 54 from 2003 until about 2015. In 2018 the respondent sold part of the garden of No. 56 for development, stipulating that the developer level and seed the Disputed Land as a substitute garden. HM Land Registry referred both matters to the First-tier Tribunal.