6.1 Title by Adverse Possession

• Library: Real Estate Practice Deskbook (2019 Ed.)

I. (§6.1) Title by Adverse Possession

The principle that "possession is nine-tenths of the law" finds expression in the theory of adverse possession in real property law. Legal title can be lost by the record owner to a person who maintains actual and hostile possession of the real property for the statutory period.

Title by adverse possession is of no less dignity than title by a warranty deed. Moran v. Roaring River Dev. Co., 461 S.W.2d 822, 831 (Mo. 1970); Hunott v. Critchlow, 285 S.W.2d 594, 599 (Mo. 1955). Possessing real estate adversely for ten years in effect bars any action to recover land. Section 516.010, RSMo 2016, provides:

No action for the recovery of any lands, tenements or hereditaments, or for the recovery of the possession thereof, shall be commenced, had or maintained by any person, whether citizen, denizen, alien, resident or nonresident of this state, unless it appear[s] that the plaintiff, his ancestor, predecessor, grantor or other person under whom he claims was seized or possessed of the premises in question, within ten years before the commencement of such action.

Adverse possession establishes an indefeasible legal title in the possessor, and the title of the record owner is divested. The title acquired by adverse possession is not lost by abandonment or failure to assert it after it has been perfected. La Grange Reorganized Sch. Dist. No. R-VI v. Smith, 312 S.W.2d 135, 139 (Mo. 1958). Therefore, the ten-year period does not need to be the ten years immediately preceding the suit. Moore v. Hoffman, 39 S.W.2d 339, 344 (Mo. 1931). Title lost by adverse possession can be reacquired through adverse possession. Walton v. Gilton, 175 S.W.3d 170, 172 (Mo. App. S.D. 2005).

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