1. The use or enjoyment of real property with a claim of right when that use or enjoyment is continuous, exclusive, hostile, open, and notorious. • In Louisiana, it is the detention or enjoyment of a corporeal thing with the intent to hold it as one’s own. La. Civ. Code art. 3421.
— Also termed adverse dominion. Cf. PRESCRIPTION(5). [Cases: Adverse Possession 1–95. C.J.S. Adverse Possession §§ 2–225, 263–299, 327–338; Conflict of Laws § 76.]
constructive adverse possession.
1. Adverse possession in which the claim arises from the claimant’s payment of taxes under color of right rather than by actual possession of the land.
2. Louisiana law. Adverse possession by operation of law. • When a possessor holds title to the property and corporeally possesses part of it, the possessor is deemed to have constructive possession of the rest of the property described in the title. La. Civ. Code art. 3426. [Cases: Adverse Possession 86–95. C.J.S. Adverse Possession §§ 210–225, 263, 265–267, 277, 279, 291, 293, 299.]
2. The doctrine by which title to real property is acquired as a result of such use or enjoyment over a specified period of time. See POSSESSION.
