Advice on Land Ownership and Prescription – Legal Aid

Questioner

We have been living in our current house for 17 years. The municipality has now announced that we are in unlawful possession of a strip of land. We have maintained the boundary as we purchased it. There is a photo of that situation from 2000 and our neighbor wants to state that the previous (first) owner had already drawn a strip of land near the garden. The municipality relies on the fact that, based on the deed of transfer, we are responsible for this situation and therefore have to buy, rent or vacate. Can we still do anything about this?

Lawyer

There are only two ways to defend: 1. acquisitive prescription 2. liberative prescription For the first, you must be in good faith. You are not because when you bought the plot 17 years ago, you could have seen by consulting the land registry that this piece of land does not belong to the plot sold. In the case of liberative prescription, you do not have to be in good faith and a term of 20 years applies. You have already owned the strip of land for 17 years, so that you only have to prove that your legal predecessor had also owned the strip of land for more than 3 years. You then claim with the municipality that you have become the owner by operation of law through prescription. The municipality can then only file a claim with the civil court to reclaim its land. It is then up to the court to assess whether you have provided sufficient evidence that the land has been in the possession of a third party for more than 20 years. For more information, please contact me directly.

Lawyer

Well, you are lucky that your municipality itself says that you have the land in your possession unlawfully: then there is no other, for example legal, ground present, such as a free use agreement. (without consideration) If you can prove that the land was already in your possession before the transfer to you and the total possession lasts for 20 years, you can invoke acquisitive prescription as explained above.