What it does
The Limitation Act 1935 (WA) consolidates and amends the rules that prescribe the maximum time within which a person may commence civil proceedings to enforce legal rights. Its core function is to bar claims after prescribed periods, thereby promoting finality, protecting defendants from stale evidence, and encouraging claimants to act with reasonable promptness. Section 4 provides the foundational rule for land and rent: no entry, distress, or action may be brought after 12 years from accrual. Section 5 then supplies an elaborate set of deeming rules that fix the accrual date according to the nature of the claimant’s estate or interest—dispossession (s.5(a)), death of the last entitled person (s.5(b)), instrument granting possession (s.5(c)), reversion falling into possession (s.5(d)), or forfeiture (s.5(e)). A closing paragraph to s.5 deems land not in actual adverse possession to remain in the possession of the person entitled, preventing constructive possession from restarting the clock.
Subsequent provisions address discrete factual patterns. Sections 6–7 protect remaindermen and future estates by granting a fresh accrual when the prior estate determines, subject to a longer of 12 or 6 years rule. Section 8 treats administrators as though letters of administration relate back to the date of death. Sections 9–11 govern tenancies at will and from year to year, fixing accrual at the end of one year or last rent payment, with a special $2 rent threshold in s.11 (as amended in 1965) to prevent wrongful receipt from restarting time against the true owner. Sections 12–14 prevent mere entry, continual claims, or possession by one co-owner from preserving or attributing rights to others. Section 15 elevates a written acknowledgment signed by the possessor to the legal equivalent of possession, restarting the clock.
Disability provisions (ss.16–19) extend time by six years after the disability (infancy, idiocy, lunacy, unsoundness of mind) ceases, but impose an absolute 30-year outer limit (s.18) and prohibit chaining successive disabilities (s.19). Section 20 extinguishes future estates once a possessory estate is barred. Sections 21–23 contain intricate rules preserving or barring remainders after a tenant in tail is barred, including the effect of adverse possession running against barred remaindermen and the validation of assurances after 12 years. Equitable claims are synchronised with legal ones (s.24), while express trusts do not start time until conveyance to a purchaser (s.25). Fraud suspends time until discovery (s.27), but bona fide purchasers for value are protected.