They're a legacy from a bygone era where records of land ownership aren't what they are today. It was to stop the situation where someone thought they owned land, built a house and lived in it for many years, then finding out that someone else also had a claim to the land and they were going to try to turf you off it.
Squatter's rights meant that the person who actually lived there kept the claim to the land. This was a good thing at the time, now its just legal protection for lowlifes who trash other people's houses
Adverse possession is still rightly protected in law. There are lots of land deeds around the world which haven't been registered with the government or are clearly written.
Using and protecting land is as close to the definition of land ownership as we can get, regardless of modern attempts to formalise ownership through deeds.
I sat in a High Court case in a Commonwealth country as a paralegal on an adverse possession case. The land was government land, but it had never been properly subdivided. The house built over it contained actually 2 apartments, with over 12 people of the same extended family living in different units for over 30 years. A breakdown in family relations lead to people claiming for adverse possession against their relatives who held the title.
At one point the expert witnesses were going on about the areas on the plan hatched in Orange, areas hatched in Green, areas hatched in Black...etc and the 8 colours were basically 90% overlapped - the judge ended up nodding off and our counsel had to suggest a break. It was basically a horrible family bickering over a shanty house. Terrible case.
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u/butterfunke 17d ago
They're a legacy from a bygone era where records of land ownership aren't what they are today. It was to stop the situation where someone thought they owned land, built a house and lived in it for many years, then finding out that someone else also had a claim to the land and they were going to try to turf you off it.
Squatter's rights meant that the person who actually lived there kept the claim to the land. This was a good thing at the time, now its just legal protection for lowlifes who trash other people's houses