Squatters claim legal ownership of land

Press, 5 January 1987, Page 2

Squatters claim legal ownership of land

PA Invercargill Rising land values in Central Otago, associated with the Queenstown tourism boom, are spurring the apparent owners of 70 sections round the town of Kingston to claim legal title to “their” land. The “Southland Times” newspaper reported that many people who had been using sections round the old gold mining town were in fact squatters, since the gold miners who originally owned the land had moved on when the gold ran out about 100 years ago. Without legal ownership, people using the sections cannot legally

transfer possession of the land. But until recently the cost of winning title to the sections almost equalled the value of unimproved sections, and few “owners” bothered to apply. But now, the newspaper reported, more squatters were deciding to set their title claims in order, as the region’s tourism boom boosted land values in the area.

But to gain legal possession, they have to prove that they have occupied the land for at least 20 years.

If they want to gain legal possession, they face spending $2OOO and a year or more before all the paperwork is completed. Even then, in some cases they will not be able to persuade the Justice Department that they should be recognised as the genuine owners of the land.

In the heyday of the goldmining days, Kingston was one of many boom towns in the south, with all the trappings of gold mining settlements: 10 hotels, two banks, a police station and several stores, including a butcher’s shop. But as the gold became harder to find, many of the miners simply walked off their land.

Legally, they still held the title to their land at Kingston, but in fact, most of them simply disappeared, headed for

other diggings and other countries. As time went on, other people moved on to the vacant sites.

. In many cases they fenced the land they had occupied, and put up sometimes substantial houses and cribs. Those cases are the most straightforward when it comes to agreeing to bestow the legal title on the occupier.

Under the law, a person who has been squatting on the land for 20 years, and in some case 30 years, can apply to make that land legally his or hers.

Whether the application succeeds depends on the sort of possession they have established over their years of squatting. In law, they must be able to show that they have had “continuous, exclusive and undisputed possession of land.” Normally this would be shown by personal occupation, fencing, the erection of buildings, and by the person treating the land as his or her own, and paying the rates and power bills, but problems do arise for the person who has "owned” a bare section at Kingston for many years, using it only for camping for a week or so every Christmas. “It is not enough just to have paid the rates,” the district land registrar in Invercargill, Mr John Van Bolderen, said. “Just putting a tent on the section at Christmas each year doesn’t prove continuous, exclusive and undisputed possession of the land.” There are other options for Kingston squatters with unimproved sections and a record of only occasional occupation. They can put up fencing, and possibly move a portable hut on to the property. “They have got to show the world they are in possession,” Mr Van Boldren said. “Just camping for a week in the year is not really showing the

world you are in possession.”

Another option is simply not to pay the rates, and then when the council orders a rating sale, put in the highest bid. That was the way most squatters gained full legal ownership of land before the present Land Transfer Act came into existence in 1953.

One Invercargill lawyer who has handled several squatters’ applications said most applications cost at least $2OOO by the time the work was competed. Generally it took at least a year, and sometimes two, to tie up all the loose ends.

The lawyer, who preferred not to be named, said it was necessary to prove the deaths of the original owners, unless the land had been occupied for more than 30 years.

“In one case I’ve got, it was straightforward enough to establish the death of one of the owners,” he said. “He fell down the No. 1 shaft of the Bendigo mine in the late nineteenth century.” But there were problems with the other owner. He was described on the original title as a Dunedin accountant, but the Registrar-General has no record of the death of an accountant of that name.

“Until we have proved his death, we cannot get the title, unless we wait until the occupier has had possession for 30 years,” the lawyer said. Establishing the death of the original owners was only one of the steps that had to be taken.

There had to be supporting declarations from neighbours “of good repute” saying the occupier had in fact been on the land in question for 20 years, and the squatter was expected to provide supporting evidence, such as old photographs, to prove long-time possession.