Adverse Possession: Law and Classic Decisions of the UK and US

Saji Koduvath, Advocate, Kottayam

English Common Law

The law of adverse possession in most Commonwealth countries traces back to English common law and is built around three essential elements:

  • Factual possession — actual, exclusive control over the land;
  • Animus possidendi — intention to possess as owner;
  • Possession adverse to the true owner — without permission, and inconsistent with the owner’s title.

In those countries, the following principles of adverse possession are broadly recognised:

  • Possession must be open, notorious, and continuous;
  • It must be nec vi, nec clam, nec precario (without force, secrecy, or permission);
  • The true owner’s title is extinguished upon expiry of the limitation period;
  • The claimant’s acts must be such as to put the true owner on notice of hostile possession.

Enacted Laws

  • India: Governed by the Limitation Act, 1963 (Articles 64–65). Title is extinguished after limitation expires.
  • UK: Traditional law under the Limitation Act 1980, but significantly modified for registered land by the Land Registration Act 2002, introducing a notice-based regime favouring the registered owner.
  • United States: There is no single, uniform federal law on adverse possession. The doctrine is governed entirely by state statutes (often within property or civil procedure codes), so the enacted laws vary from state to state. The statutes across the U.S. share a common structure and typically codify the same core elements.
  • Australia: State-based statutes; some Torrens systems restrict adverse possession against registered titles.
  • Canada: Varies by province; in some (e.g., Ontario for registered land), adverse possession is largely curtailed.

Knowledge of True Owner

  • India: Strong judicial emphasis that possession must be open and hostile enough to impute knowledge to the true owner.
  • UK (post-2002): Actual notice mechanisms reduce reliance on “imputed knowledge.”
  • Australia/Canada: Mixed approaches depending on title system (Torrens vs. unregistered land).

The formulations of the maxim, in adverse possession, nec vi, nec clam, nec precario, are uniformly embodied in substantive content, though varied in language, in Commonwealth Countries.

The United Kingdom

Now it is difficult and unlikely to ‘acquire’ (title of) registered land through ‘squatting’ (perfecting adverse possession). Because the Land Registration Act, 2002, requires registration of lands acquired through adverse possession. Upon such registration, the original owner will be informed of this matter. The owner can make his objections, if any. He can also repossess within two years after being informed by the Land Registry.

The Limitation Act, 1980: Section 15 of the Limitation Act, 1980, provides as under:

  • “15(1). No action shall be brought by any person to recover any land after the expiration of 12 years from the date on which the right of action accrued to him or, if it first accrued to some person through whom he claims, to that person.”
  • “(6). Part I of Schedule 1 to this Act contains provisions for determining the date of accrual of rights of action to recover land in the cases there mentioned.”

Schedule 1, paragraph 1 provides:

  • “Where the person bringing an action to recover land, or some person through whom he claims, has been in possession of the land, and has while entitled to the land been dispossessed or discontinued his possession, the right of action shall be treated as having accrued on the date of the dispossession or discontinuance.”

Schedule 1, paragraph 8 provides:

  • “8(1). No right of action to recover land shall be treated as accruing unless the land is in the possession of some person in whose favour the period of limitation can run (referred to below in this paragraph as ‘adverse possession’); and where under the preceding provisions of this Schedule any such right of action is treated as accruing on a certain date and no person is in adverse possession on that date, the right of action shall not be treated as accruing unless and until adverse possession is taken of the land.”
  • “(4). For the purpose of determining whether a person occupying any land is in adverse possession of the land it shall not be assumed by implication of law that his occupation is by permission of the person entitled to the land merely by virtue of the fact that his occupation is not inconsistent with the latter’s present or future enjoyment of the land.
  • “This provision shall not be taken as prejudicing a finding to the effect that a person’s occupation of any land is by implied permission of the person entitled to the land in any case where such a finding is justified on the actual facts of the case.”

JA Pye (Oxford) Ltd v. Graham: Before the Land Registration Act 2002

JA Pye (Oxford) Ltd v. Graham [2002] was rendered by the House of Lords, on adverse possession. This was a matter before the Land Registration Act 2002.  

Facts of the case: Pye, the Director of the company, acted through its director. He allowed his neighbours, the Grahams, to use 23 hectares (57 acres) he owned under a grazing agreement. The agreement period ended on 31 December 1983. Pye did not enter into another agreement because he wanted to develop the land. After 12 years, the Grahams sought to obtain it under the law of adverse possession.

High Court Judgment: In the High Court, Neuberger J., held – under the Land Registration Act 1925 the Grahams were the lawful owners of the land as Pye had failed to take possession of this land within the statutory time.  There was adverse possession in registered land.

Court of Appeal: The Court of Appeal overturned the ruling of the High Court and held that the Grahams were only using the land because of the grazing agreement, thus they hadn’t been in possession of it.

House of Lords: The House of Lords in JA Pye (Oxford) Ltd v. Graham, [2002] UKHL 30, [2003] 1 AC 419, unanimously rejected the Court of Appeal’s decision and restored the decision of Neuberger J. that found adverse possession. It was observed by the House of Lords that the intention of the squatter (of excluding the owner) is decisive, not that of the true owner. It proceeded as  under:

  • “43 A similar manifestation of the same heresy is the statement by Sir Nathaniel Lindley MR in Littledale v Liverpool College [1900] 1 Ch 19, 23 that the paper owners
    • “could not be dispossessed unless the plaintiffs obtained possession themselves; and possession by the plaintiffs involves an animus possidendi–i e, occupation with the intention of excluding the owner as well as other people”.
  • This requirement of an intention to exclude the owner as well as everybody else has been repeated in subsequent cases. In Powell’s case 38 P & CR 452, 471-472, Slade J found difficulty in understanding what was meant by this dictum since a squatter will normally know that until the full time has run, the paper owner can recover the land from him. Slade J reformulated the requirement (to my mind correctly) as requiring an
    • “intention, in one’s own name and on one’s own behalf, to exclude the world at large, including the owner with the paper title if he be not himself the possessor, so far as is reasonably practicable and so far as the processes of the law will allow”.
  • “45. ….. The suggestion that the sufficiency of the possession can depend on the intention not of the squatter but of the true owner is heretical and wrong. It reflects an attempt to revive the pre-1833 concept of adverse possession requiring inconsistent user. Bramwell LJ’s heresy led directly to the heresy in the Wallis’s Cayton Bay line of cases to which I have referred, which heresy was abolished by statute. It has been suggested that the heresy of Bramwell LJ survived this statutory reversal but in the Moran case the Court of Appeal rightly held that however one formulated the proposition of Bramwell LJ as a proposition of law it was wrong. The highest it can be put is that, if the squatter is aware of a special purpose for which the paper owner uses or intends to use the land and the use made by the squatter does not conflict with that use, that may provide some support for a finding as a question of fact that the squatter had no intention to possess the land in the ordinary sense but only an intention to occupy it until needed by the paper owner. For myself I think there will be few occasions in which such inference could be properly drawn in cases where the true owner has been physically excluded from the land. But it remains a possible, if improbable, inference in some cases.”

The United States – Ewing v Burnet

Most U.S. statutes require possession to be:

  • Hostile (without permission)
  • Actual (physical use of the land)
  • Open and notorious (visible so the owner can notice)
  • Exclusive (not shared with the true owner or public)
  • Continuous (for the statutory period)

See: Ewing v Burnet, 36 U.S. (11 Pet.) 41 (1837).

It is held by the U.S. Supreme Court, in Lessee of Ewing v. Burnet, 36 U.S. 11 Pet. 41 (1837) as under:

  • “It is well settled that to constitute an adverse possession, there need not be a fence, building, or other improvement made; it suffices for this purpose that visible and notorious acts of ownership are exercised over the premises in controversy for twenty-one years after an entry under claim and color of title. So much depends on the nature and situation of the property, the uses to which it can be applied or to which the owner or claimant may choose to apply it, that it is difficult to lay down any precise rule adapted to all cases. But it may with safety be said that where acts of ownership have been done upon land which from their nature indicate a notorious claim of property in it and are continued for twenty-one years with the knowledge of an adverse claimant, without interruption, or an adverse entry by him for twenty-one years, such acts are evidence of an ouster of a former owner and an actual adverse possession against him if the jury shall think that the property was not susceptible of a more strict or definite possession than had been so taken and held.”

U.S. statutes in various States

California

  • Governed by the California Code of Civil Procedure § 325
  • Requires:
    • 5 years’ continuous possession
    • Payment of property taxes
    • Claim often supported by color of title

New York

  • Governed by the New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law § 501–551
  • Statutory period: 10 years
  • 2008 reforms clarified “hostility” and limited claims based on minor encroachments

Texas

  • Governed by the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §§ 16.021–16.030
  • Multiple limitation periods:
    • 3 years (with title or color of title)
    • 5 years (with tax payment and deed)
    • 10 years (bare possession)
    • Up to 25 years in some cases

Florida

  • Governed by the Florida Statutes § 95.16 and § 95.18
  • Distinguishes between:
    • With color of title
    • Without color of title (requires tax payment and filing)

Illinois

  • Governed by the Illinois Compiled Statutes 735 ILCS 5/13-101
  • Period: 20 years (general rule)
Read Also:
•   Adverse Possession: A Concise Overview
•   What is Adverse Possession in Indian Law?
•   Adverse Possession Against Government
•   ‘Possessory Title’ in Indian Law
•   Ouster and Dispossession in Adverse Possession
•   Does ‘Abandonment’ Give rise to a Recognised Right in Indian Law?
•   Government of Kerala v. Joseph – Law on Adv. Possession Against Govt.
•   Declaration of Title & Recovery of Possession: Art. 65, not Art. 58, Limitation Act Governs
•   Illegal, Mistaken or Fraudulent Registration of Deed, and Subsequent Mutation: No Adverse Possession
•   Adverse Possession: Requirements of (i) the Dispossession and (ii) the True Owner’s Knowledge — Not Expressly Stated in Article 65 Limitation Act, or in ‘Nec Vi, Nec Clam, Nec Precario’
•   Adverse Possession: Law and Classic Decisions of the UK and US
•   Adverse Possession: Should Unobstructed Possession Subsist for 12 Years Immediately Preceding the Suit?
•  How to Plead Adverse Possession? Adverse Possession: An Evolving Concept.

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