Adverse Possession Through Regulation

First year law school is almost always devoted to real estate law in general, with a particular emphasis on riparian law, since law evolved sorting out conflicts over land and in particular access to rivers.

One owns property that one (or a family) can manage oneself, real property being land and the waters adjacent.  This is all well settled by centuries of legal precedent, although there are some curious subtleties, such as on the east coast of USA inheritance of land tends to follow the anglo-saxon primogeniture patterns and the west coast tend to follow the Hispanic matrilineal traditions.  There are even rules as to how far across a river title extends (no not halfway, but along the line of the deepest part, so each side gets equal volume and aquaculture diversity.)

Property becomes yours if you buy it, or if it is unclaimed, it becomes yours when you mix your labor with raw material or real estate. Normally real estate is transferred by means of a purchase and sale agreement.  Sometimes not.

Now what if the family circumstances change, and the family no longer needs (or no longer can work due to members of the family moving on...) some particular parcel?  Naturally people do not want to give up what they once owned, even if they cannot use it, especially land.  So what can happen is one can take adverse possession of a parcel, and if the takers uses it for a set time, after that time the taker owns it.

From state to state there are some slight differences, but in essence the possession must be open (everyone can see it), actual (you use the land), exclusive (you are the only one using it), hostile (against the wishes of the owner) and continuous.  If you meet these criterion for say 10 years, the land is yours.

Well, why wouldn't someone evict you for trespass if the use was hostile.  People may not realize it is their land, they may like what you are doing and hope to benefit by it somehow, but do not want to give up the land, or they may just not want to argue.  In any event, adverse possession occurs and it is a peaceful way of neighbors ceding land to neighbors, a peaceful way of transferring property from nonproductive users to productive users.

I was listening to a government regulator the other day claim that something (I did not catch what, but the principle applies to everything) was so heavily regulated that the government had an interest in it that was tantamount to title.  The property was actually useless to the owner since the government called any and all meaningful shots regarding the land.

Well, this would apply to anything regulated, and in all things regulated there comes a time when that which you own yet is regulated becomes effectively owned by the government.  In essence, they accomplish the elements of adverse possession, that is open, actual, exclusive, hostile and continuous.  Whereas in real estate one must go ten years, the government owns it from day one.

This is just one more example of how things have changed, and contribute to an unsustainable polity.  When this system crashes, it will come down on us all.

The best defense is self-employment.

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