Legal Definitions - squatter's rights

Squatter's rights is a common, informal term referring to the legal principle of adverse possession. This principle allows a person to gain legal ownership (known as "title") of someone's private land, even without the owner's permission, by openly occupying it for a specific period of time and meeting certain legal requirements. While historically it also referred to the right to claim public lands, in modern private property law, it primarily relates to adverse possession.

For a claim of adverse possession to be successful, the occupation must typically be:

• Hostile: Meaning without the true owner's permission.
• Actual: The person must physically occupy the property.
• Open and Notorious: The occupation must be visible and obvious to anyone, including the true owner.
• Exclusive: The person must possess the land to the exclusion of the true owner and others.
• Continuous: The occupation must be uninterrupted for the entire statutory period, which varies by state (often 5 to 20 years).

Here are some examples illustrating how "squatter's rights" (adverse possession) might apply:

• Neglected Residential Property: Imagine an old, abandoned house in a suburban neighborhood that has been vacant and neglected for 25 years. A person, seeing the property fall into disrepair, decides to move in. They openly begin to renovate the house, maintain the yard, pay for utilities, and live there continuously, treating it as their own home. The original owner is unaware or simply doesn't care. After the statutory period for adverse possession in that state has passed (e.g., 15 years), the person living there might be able to file a legal claim to gain full legal ownership of the property, demonstrating that their occupation met all the necessary criteria.

  This example illustrates how continuous, open, and hostile occupation of a private property, coupled with acts of ownership like maintenance and improvements, can lead to a claim of title under the principle of adverse possession, even if the original owner had legal title.

• Rural Boundary Encroachment: Consider two adjacent rural properties. One landowner, believing a certain strip of land belongs to them, installs a fence and cultivates a garden on what is actually a portion of their neighbor's undeveloped property. They openly use and maintain this garden for 12 years, without any objection or challenge from the neighbor, who rarely visits their land. If the statutory period for adverse possession in that jurisdiction is 10 years, the landowner who built the fence and gardened the land might be able to claim legal ownership of that specific strip of land, as their use was open, continuous, exclusive, and without the true owner's permission for the required duration.

  This example demonstrates how adverse possession can apply to smaller portions of land, such as in boundary disputes, where one party openly and continuously uses a part of another's property for the legally mandated time, effectively acquiring ownership of that specific area.