Anyone who takes adverse possession of land will thereby acquire a new legal fee simple in it (Leach v Jay).

If land is unregistered there will be the unregistered legal fee simple of the dispossessed owner and the newly created fee simple of the adverse possessor.

If land is registered there will be the registered legal fee simple of the registered proprietor, and the newly raised legal fee simple of the adverse possessor.

Any fee simple holder who is dispossessed (original owner) by a squatter can bring an action to recover possession from them.

General rule is that the fee simple which existed first is the better one.

When estate is unregistered, if they fail to recover possession within 12 years, both the right to recover the land and their title is extinguished (s15 Limitation Act 1980).

When dispossessed party's estate was registered the same result prevails under Land Registration Act 1925 - after the 12 year period of adverse possession the registered proprietor is deemed to hold their estate on trust for the adverse possessor s 75(1) LRA 1925.

Protect defendants from stale claims and to encourage claimants not to sleep on their rights.

Prevent hardship in a case where a person takes possession of land in the reasonable but mistaken belief that they are the owner of the land.

Paper title holder/owner/registered proprietor is deemed to be in possession of land, even if they are not actually using it.

Claimant must have been 'dealing with the land in question as an occupying owner might have been expected to have dealt with it and no one else has done so' (Powell v McFarlane).

Needful conduct varies according to the nature of the land (Wilson v Martin's Executors/ Red House Farms/ Heaney v Kirkby).

What constitutes a sufficient degree of exclusive control depends on nature of land and usage (Thorpe v Frank).

Possession must be exclusive so any significant use by the paper title owner or third parties will prevent a finding of factual possession (Bligh v Martin).

Fencing off relevant land is often evidence of factual possession (Sedan v Smith), so is installing locks (Lambeth v Blackburn).

Does not matter if the claimant mistakenly believes that they are the owner (Prudential Assurance v Waterloo).

Does not matter if the adverse possessor would have been willing to pay for their occupation had they been asked to do so (J A Pye v Graham).