Jill Ruth Schultz & Anor v Paul Jonathan Cater & Anor

Facts

The applicants, Ms Jill Ruth Schultz and Mr John Mark Hammersley, own 5 Moseley Row, Wilmore Hill Lane, Hopton, Stafford, the last of five houses fronting a small private yard or roadway off Wilmore Hill Lane. The respondents, Mr Paul Jonathan Cater and Ms Zoe Ann Bell, have owned 1 Moseley Row, which includes the Yard, since March 2022, having bought from Mr Graham Teece, who in turn had purchased in July 2018 from the estate of Mr Les Davis, the owner of No. 1 from around 1950. Successive occupiers of No. 5 — Mrs Jacqueline McCracken from 1977 until her death in June 2014, then Ms Sophie Knight, then Ms Philippa Attwood, then the applicants from June 2022 — parked a car on the Yard alongside the front wall of No. 5. The applicants applied to HM Land Registry on 17 September 2024 to note the benefit and burden of a right to park. The respondents' solicitors objected in December 2024, contending that the parking had been by the consent of the owners of No. 1 from time to time, and the Land Registry referred the dispute to the Tribunal on 5 April 2025. At the hearing the respondents also raised, for the first time, the ouster principle.