Piers Richard Connor & Anor v Dawn Alice Moore-Elphick & Anor

Facts

The applicants, Dr Connor and Dr Pasquire, have been the registered proprietors of 7 Hunters Rise, Kirby Bellars, since 2012. Their title includes the house and a field to the east, which their predecessors, Mr and Mrs Startin, acquired and linked with a rough stone accessway in about 1990. The respondents have owned the neighbouring 10 Hunters Rise since 2014. A narrow triangular strip, about 1.4m wide at the road and tapering eastwards, lies within the respondents' title between the accessway and the root line of a leylandii hedge that a former owner of number 10 planted in about 1990. In 2017 the applicants excavated the accessway and laid block paving, part of which extended onto the strip. The respondents cut the hedge down in 2021, and correspondence followed about the boundary. By form ADV1, dated 1 December 2022 and received by HM Land Registry on 8 December 2022, the applicants applied for title to the strip by adverse possession under Schedule 6 paragraph 1 Land Registration Act 2002. They also applied in the alternative under the transitional provisions of Schedule 12 paragraph 18 of the Land Registration Act 2002, relying on the Startins' possession from about 1990. The respondents served a counter-notice requiring the application to be dealt with under paragraph 5 of Schedule 6 to the Land Registration Act 2002. The matter was referred to the First-tier Tribunal.