The Land Registration Act 2002 (LRA 2002) has effectively curtailed the law permitting the acquisition of title through adverse possession in relation to most types of adverse possessor, including the paradigmatic urban squatter. While the traditional principles for the acquisition of title through adverse possession enabled a squatter to secure rights in land ‘automatically’ after 12 years, under the LRA 2002 an urban squatter seeking to defend their possession of land in this way must now apply to the Land Registry, who will serve a notice on the registered proprietor alerting them to his or her presence. This procedure provides the landowner with an opportunity to recover possession of the property before the squatter’s occupation has gi...