An alleged squatter who illegally lived with his family in a Hamilton apartment for more than 20 years has been awarded ownership of the unit by the Supreme Court.

The property’s legal owner, Charles Rawlins, had gone to the courts to force Ralph Russell and his family to vacate the Union Street home, but Mr Russell responded with a claim of adverse possession, arguing he had had exclusive possession of the property since 1976.

Under the Limitation Act 1984, a property owner is effectively treated as having abandoned his title if he has permitted a trespasser to treat the property as his own for a period greater than 20 years.

According to a Supreme Court judgement, Mr Rawlins had told the court he inherited a lot consisting of 37, 39 South and 39 North Union Street from his father in 1966 and has paid all appropriate taxes on the property since then.

He said sometime between 1985 and 1992, while a tenant was lawfully living in 39 South, he heard that vagrants had broken into 37 and 39 North. As a result, he boarded up the empty unit and believed the issue had been resolved until around 2000, when he became aware Mr Russell was living in 39 North.

Mr Rawlins also said he had attorneys serve the squatters with notices to leave in 2010 but they were ignored, and a nephew of Mr Rawlins said that he had placed “no trespassing” signs on the property on two occasions in the last ten years, but not on 39 North.

Mr Russell told the court that he first moved into 39 North unlawfully in 1976, at which point he said it was in a dilapidated state.

He said he fixed up the property, and occasionally allowed others to stay in the other units on the property when they were not being lawfully rented.

Sometime during the 1990s he said 37 became a drug den, causing both he and his wife to repeatedly call the police about the problem.

According to the judgement, Chief Justice Ian Kawaley found that Mr Russell had moved into the property no later than 1992, noting that Mr Russell is listed as living at 39 Union Street in the 1995/1996 Parliamentary Register.

“I regard this as cogent and convincing evidence that by 1995 [Mr Russell] was so well established in 39 North that he was willing to list it as his official address,” Mr Justice Kawaley said. “I find it impossible to believe that he would have registered as a voter at this address if he was only living there covertly, in a manner designed to conceal his occupation from the true owner.”

He added: “Obviously, registering the address for voting purposes is not, in and of itself, as unequivocal an assertion of rights of ownership as charging rent to other occupants is in general terms. However, this public record is wholly inconsistent with the picture painted by [Mr Rawlins] of the state of the building during this period, namely a derelict building which was constantly being boarded up to prevent squatters breaking in, and which gave every appearance of being unoccupied at all until around the year 2000.

“And bearing in mind that the Respondents in the 1990s were, by [Mr Rawlins’] own account, occupying 39 North without his knowledge or consent and without paying rent, publishing [Mr Russell’s] unlawful occupation in a very public record is more reflective of assertions of ownership than it is of covert occupation by a squatter,‘ living rough.’”

While the Chief Justice said there was nothing to dispute Mr Rawlins’ claim that he had no knowledge that Mr Russell was living in the property between 1992 and 2000, he would have discovered them if he had made any serious attempts to see if the property was occupied.

And he said it was “implicitly admitted” that Mr Rawlins did nothing to interrupt Mr Russell’s occupation of 39 North.

“Time did not stop running against [Mr Rawlins] until he commenced the present proceedings on March 19, 2013,” Mr Justice Kawaley said. “This was more than 20 years after I find [Mr Russell] first started permanently and openly occupying the property by way of adverse possession.”

He granted Mr Russell’s claim for a declaration that he has become the owner of the property by adverse possession, but only in regards to 39 North.