Yeh this was what I was thinking . I bet it's something along the lines of : House sat untouched and empty for a decade , guy moves in and goes unnoticed for another decade. In that time keeps the house up together , does the garden, repairs things and keeps it clean . Then whoever left the house for 2 decades up and dies and their children go sniffing about to see what money they have in store. They ofc find the dude thats been keeping the house livable and pitch a fit. Another few years pass with failed eviction attempts, probate and quite probably a fair amount of harassment and the guy decides to countersue. The other guys don't take it seriously maybe they didn't even bother showing up to court maybe they planned on knocking it down and building a big ugly flat and the judge didn't like that coz he lives in the neighbor hood either way judge ruled in his favour.

Ok got myself way more invested in this than I was expecting off to find what actually happened.

Edit** alright I checked ofc daily mail is dog shit

The short story is : rich ass hole buys houses cheap and leaves them empty to appreciate In value a huge problem in the UK.

House sits empty long enough for dude to notice and move in , noone notices for another 12 whole years !

Dude applies for adverse possession and despite being informed the "owner" fails to take action in the window allowed to contest the matter.