Baxter v Mannion [2010] EWHC 573 (Ch), [2010] All ER (D) 173 (Mar)
The registrar had power to correct a mistake he had made if any statutory condition which was a prerequisite for registration by adverse possession was shown not to have been satisfied.
A registration was a mistake if it could be shown that a person had not in fact been in adverse possession of a plot of land for the requisite 10 year period. That precondition referred to a factual test which had to be satisfied and upon which a squatter’s right to apply for registration was predicated.
Although the procedural test was to persuade him that a claim to adverse possession was more likely to succeed than not, it was important not to confuse a procedural filter of that nature with the substantive test, which was clear and unqualified.
