Court of Appeal Denies Thames River Claim

The Court of Appeal has overturned the ruling that a boat owner who had moored his boat to the river bed of the Thames had acquired legal title to the land. The Court accepted that it was possible to acquire the title by adverse possession (‘squatter’s rights’), but ruled that this had not been demonstrated to have occurred in this case and that a full trial would be necessary to determine whether the man had, in fact, exercised sufficient control over the land in question to justify the claim.