Anyone have any dealings with Squatters Rights?

mikewa

Hi all,

This is a pretty strange one but hoping someone here has a little bit of knowledge.

Living in the south east of the country. Basically my family own roughly 60 acres of land adjacent to a now derelict nursing home. This nursing home is a complete eye sore, it's been the source of a lot of negative activity involving teens (the usual stuff teenagers get up to, drinking, smashing bottles etc). There has also been 3 fires there, so they place is completely destroyed now. The property was last used as a nursing home over 20 years ago and since then has been lying derelict.

About 15 or so years ago some of our ponies broke onto the property, it's about 5 acres in total, and there has been some of our ponies in there consistently ever since. Its a beautiful site, would be one of the finest in the county but we can't engage with the owner as he ignores any letters that are sent to him. About 2 years ago he applied for planning permission to turn the property into a small hotel but it was turned down. The place is still left in the mess it has been in with broken stuff everywhere with no attempt to clean the place.

What I'm wondering is, would it be possible to apply for Adverse Possession? If so how would we go about it. There is no way of getting anything done to the property otherwise and it's a real negative to the community as is.

Thanks in advance for any help

whomitconcerns

mikewa wrote: »

Hi all,

This is a pretty strange one but hoping someone here has a little bit of knowledge.

Living in the south east of the country. Basically my family own roughly 60 acres of land adjacent to a now derelict nursing home. This nursing home is a complete eye sore, it's been the source of a lot of negative activity involving teens (the usual stuff teenagers get up to, drinking, smashing bottles etc). There has also been 3 fires there, so they place is completely destroyed now. The property was last used as a nursing home over 20 years ago and since then has been lying derelict.

About 15 or so years ago some of our ponies broke onto the property, it's about 5 acres in total, and there has been some of our ponies in there consistently ever since. Its a beautiful site, would be one of the finest in the county but we can't engage with the owner as he ignores any letters that are sent to him. About 2 years ago he applied for planning permission to turn the property into a small hotel but it was turned down. The place is still left in the mess it has been in with broken stuff everywhere with no attempt to clean the place.

What I'm wondering is, would it be possible to apply for Adverse Possession? If so how would we go about it. There is no way of getting anything done to the property otherwise and it's a real negative to the community as is.

Thanks in advance for any help

Well if the owner applied for pp then he asserted his ownership, so you would have a long wait, as any time period would start again then. If you know who it is, you need to keep trying to engage. Adverse possession won’t help you here in any reasonable time frame at least

Victor

Mere grazing of horses is not enough to assert ownership. https://www.irishlegal.com/article/supreme-court-dismisses-adverse-possession-case-brought-against-the-states-public-transport-corporation

Talk to the council about the littering / dereliction.

fits

You wouldnt have a case for adverse possession as owner asserted his ownership

Aside from that, it would be very expensive to claim adverse possession if he disputes it. (For everyone). Why not offer to purchase the property?

JustAThought

Victor wrote: »

Mere grazing of horses is not enough to assert ownership. https://www.irishlegal.com/article/supreme-court-dismisses-adverse-possession-case-brought-against-the-states-public-transport-corporation

I wonder how much that supreme court case cost him? Probably lost his house.

Mr. Incognito

Almost impossible to claim in practice

3DataModem

The owner was probably advised to apply for PP. It is an easy and public way to assert ownership without the proverbial "head over the wall".