Adverse possession is a law which allows an owner of land to do two things (1) disallow stale claims for the ownership of the totality of the property and (2) to claim ownership of land which is beyond the titular bounds of a legal description as determined by surveyors after having conducted a retracement survey.
Mutual Recognition & Acquiescence is a legal doctrine, which though much less used and developed than adverse possession, sometimes serves as another means to settle a land fight between adjoining property owners.
The doctrine of Mutual Recognition & Acquiescence may be adequately summarized as: (1) an express or implied good faith definition of a boundary; which (2) is bilaterally recognized
I think it is important to create more clarity in adverse possession law. While I have advocated for Good Faith and I have also considered whether we should look at who took possession first between the adverse possessor and the title holder here. As I really think the situation through, the most important point is
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding ESHB 1026. In that testimony and in my follow-up answers to questions posed by Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Adam Kline (D) – 37th Legislative District and Senator Mike Carrell (R) – 28th Legislative District, I advocated for the addition of
In my January 2011 Bar News article A Good Faith Attack on Land Thieves, I suggested that the best method to attempt to eliminate land theft allowed under the current laws would be to add the element of Good Faith to adverse possession’s 10 year common law statutory interpretation of RCW 4.16.020.
Well, today at
Adverse Possession is the primary doctrine used to resolve boundary disputes. Its requirements, or legal elements, are:
In essence what this means is that an adverse possessor needs to both sufficiently represent to others AND in actuality possess real property
