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Vacant possession refers to the typical condition in which a seller must hand over a property to a buyer upon completion, or a tenant must return the property to a landlord at the end of a lease. In simple terms, it means that the rightful person, such as a buyer or a landlord, can peacefully and fully utilize the property.
Possession is a factual state of exercising control over an object, whether the object is owned or not. Only a legal (possessor has legal ground), bona fide (possessor does not know lack of right to possess) and regular possession (not acquired through force or by deceit) can become ownership over passage of time.
Adverse possession in common law, and the related civil law concept of usucaption (also acquisitive prescription or prescriptive acquisition), are legal mechanisms under which a person who does not have legal title to a piece of property, usually real property, may acquire legal ownership based on continuous possession or occupation without the permission of its legal owner.
A seminal case on first possession is Pierson v. Post. [11] Post was a hunter who was chasing a fox through a vacant land, when Pierson, knowing it was being chased by another, killed the fox and took it away. The issue before the court is whether Post exercised enough control over the fox, a wild animal, to become first possessor.
It has been argued that in some situations, possession is ten-tenths of the law. [6] While the concept is older, the phrase "Possession is nine-tenths of the law" is often claimed to date from the 16th century. [7] In some countries, possession is not nine-tenths of the law, but rather the onus is on the possessor to substantiate his ownership. [8]
In property law, the American rule of possession states that a landlord is obligated only to deliver legal possession, but not actual possession, of a leased premises to a tenant. Thus, if a tenant arrives at a leased premises only to discover that it is still inhabited by a previous tenant who is holding over, or by squatters, it is the tenant ...
Wilson states that: "Property is the right or lawful power, which a person has to a thing." He then divides the right into three degrees: possession, the lowest; possession and use; and, possession, use, and disposition – the highest. Further, he states: "Useful and skillful industry is the soul of an active life.
Property can be considered lost, mislaid, or abandoned depending on the circumstances under which it is found by the next party who obtains its possession. An old saying is that "possession is nine-tenths of the law", dating back centuries. This means that in most cases, the possessor of a piece of property is its rightful owner without ...