Possessory Title

A new month brings another satisfied insured!

We recently concluded yet another unusual claim involving possessory title to a piece of land adjoining the insured’s property, which they and their predecessors had used as amenity land for many years.

The insured received quite an aggressive letter of claim from the ‘true’ owner of the land, challenging their use, occupation and claim to ownership and demanding that the matter be rectified at Land Registry. During the claims handling process it was evident that the claimant was not prepared to accept the position on the ground and intended to proceed to litigation on the question of ownership. This would of course be fraught with risk and excessive costs, with no guarantee of a successful outcome for the insured, not to mention a huge amount of stress which no policy could compensate for.

After a year of negotiations we managed to reach a commercial agreement with the claimant whereby a payment of £30,000 was made in return for the claimant transferring their interest in the land to the insured, and thus the title issue was eradicated. The risk of future litigation has now disappeared and the matter has been resolved with minimum stress. The insured’s solicitors, whom DUAL Asset employed throughout the process, said:

“It was a pleasure working with DUAL throughout a complicated matter, they were often able to provide immediate responses, which meant that the matter could be progressed as quickly as possible through to completion; they were at all times friendly, approachable and commercially minded.“