acquisitive prescription

Also found in: Encyclopedia.

acquisitive prescription

gaining a right over land by passage of time. At common law a right could only be acquired prescriptively if use, enjoyment or benefit (user) as of right could be shown to have been enjoyed from ‘time immemorial’. For this purpose, the year 1189 was fixed as the limit of legal memory, so that any right enjoyed at that date was unchallengeable. In practice, however, it was impossible to demonstrate this, so by the middle of the 19th century 20 years’ uninterrupted use was sufficient to found a claim at common law (see also LOST MODERN GRANT). Most legal systems employ a similar concept. In current English law an owner may apply for registration in respect of registered land after 10 years ADVERSE POSSESSION. The same concept applies in international law.

Mentioned in ?

References in periodicals archive ?

Property law researchers from Europe discuss general property law, including contractual fragmentation of property in Europe, French trusteesAE ownership, acquisitive prescription of public domain goods in various countries, and acquisition of ownership by poachers; land law, including the acquisition a non domino of real estate before January 2014 in the Czech Republic, comparative analysis of the mandatory legal regime for apartment co-ownership in Belgium and France, and the legal status in the Netherlands of the infrastructure of cables and pipes for utilities and other services; and property theory, namely the regulation of the use of property in South Africa law and an access-based paradigm of ownership.

Property Law Perspectives V

A: Acquisitive prescription of dominion and other real rights may be ordinary or extraordinary.

Property rules: Dreaming high

In other words, even if the fiduciary has, according to contract or the law, the powers that a proprietor would have, he does not act under the belief that he is the proprietor, he cannot invoke acquisitive prescription or instantaneous prescription (for movable property) as a way to gain property over the fiduciary patrimony.