Red House Farms (Thorndon) Ltd v Catchpole  [1977] 1 EGLR 125 Court of Appeal

The squatter used land adjacent to his own for the purposes of shooting wildfowl. The land was separated by a river.

Held:

Due to the nature of the land this was sufficient to constitute factual possession of the land.

Cairns LJ said:

"The authorities make it clear that what constitutes possession of any particular piece of land must depend upon the nature of the land and what it is capable of use for: see, for example, Tecbild Ltd v Chamberlain (1969) 20 P & CR 633, at p 641. I am quite satisfied that between 1945 and 1964 the only profitable use of this land was for shooting. Our attention was drawn by Mr Cullen, on behalf of the defendant, to the Privy Council case of Cadija Umma & Anr v S Don Manis Appu [1939] AC 136, where, as appears at p 140, cutting the grass was treated as possession in relation to the particular piece of land. So here I think that the learned judge was quite right to treat the shooting activity as constituting possession."

 

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