Ownership of land outside a pub

Ownership of land outside a pub is often disputed

by Keith Miller of thePublican.com's legal team of experts from London solicitors Joelson Wilson.​

Are you sure you own the forecourt of your pub? That may seem a stupid question, but it is true that many pub owners simply do not have a claim on the land between their pub and the roadway.

That land where you keep tables and benches, where the beer-drop is located, or even where you have marked out car parking spaces may not be included in the pub deeds.

The problem occurs mostly in rural and semi-rural areas where pubs were built before modern roads were laid out. The land between the pub and the road was never conveyed to anyone.

How do you find out? Well, one way is when someone lays claim to part of your car park. He may even say he owns the whole frontage strip.

I knew of a pub on a 1950s housing estate where the developer had left a 12 inch wide "ransom strip" at the back of the pavement. This was only discovered when the brewery wanted to sell off the land at the side, which, therefore, had no access to the road.

Another scenario is where the adjoining road has been re-aligned and no-one has thought to tidy up the land holdings. This may leave a wide swathe of land in front of the premises belonging to the county council.

Most often, the true position comes to light when a pub is registered for the first time at the Land Registry.

Pubs with unregistered titles were very common, at least until recently, because land registry was only necessary when a property was sold.

A pub in a brewery estate might have been built in 1820 and never sold because when brewery companies were sold it was shares, not assets, which changed hands.

When eventually the property itself comes to be transferred to a new owner and the deeds are inspected or lodged at the Land Registry, it might suddenly become clear that the brewery owns only the buildings and the garden. All that can be registered is what is comprised in the original conveyances. Ironically, the less clear the deed plans are, the more chance you may have of getting the whole premises registered.

The problem can also arise with property that is registered at the Land Registry.

A previous owner might have had the title registered (either on a purchase or voluntarily - some pub estates were registered en bloc to simplify administration) and failed to notice that a strip of land was excluded.

Is this lack of title really a problem? Do you have to direct your customers over the garden fence and into the back door - or fly them in by helicopter? Are the regulars in your bar stranded there for ever?

Don't worry too much. It is possibly not a problem in the majority of cases. The registry may be persuaded to give you something called a "possessory title" if you can prove that the land has been used exclusively with the pub for many years, either by you or previous publicans.

The difficulty of proof is that the land may, by its very nature, have never been enclosed, so you are unable to say you have had exclusive use.

There is obviously more of a problem where someone else is registered as the owner. In this case you would have to establish a "squatter's title" - again difficult if the land is not fenced off. The rules on obtaining such titles in respect of registered land are being altered in the Land Registration Act 2002, which comes into force later this year.

Another lifeline is that you should be able to claim you have acquired rights over the land by long usage: rights of way on foot or perhaps with vehicles and for services such as water, drainage, gas and electricity.

It may be that new services, such as cable TV, could be blocked by the landowner, however. Still, perhaps missing out on UK Gold is a small price to pay in the circumstances.