I recently read of an incident in Kaduna state where an occupant of a house is claiming ownership of the house due to the fact that he has been in possession of the house for over two decades and it appears that the original owners of the house are deceased or still alive but has abandoned the house due to the religious and tribal crisis that has been plaguing Kaduna state.
From the story, it is common knowledge amongst the members of the community that have resided long in that neighbourhood that the person posing around as the owner of the property and now intending to sell the property to a third party is not the owner and does not have the documents to the property, he only resided in the property for a long period of time, uninterrupted and undisturbed by the rightful owners of the property.
The legal question that an incident like this poses is whether the occupant of a property who has been in possession of the property can claim legal ownership of the property in the absence of the original owner of the property. Secondly, can the occupant of the property give the right root of title to the subsequent purchaser of the property?
The general rule to this effect is that long possession or long occupancy of a property without the intervention of the alleged true owner is a legal ground for the declaration of title. A person who has occupied the property for decades uninterrupted can give out a good root of title to a subsequent buyer of the property whenever he wants to sell.
If a family or an owner of a property has abandoned the property for over two decades it is presumed that the owner or owners of that property no longer need the property or they have left it for the current occupants to have it.
Secondly, an owner of a property who abandoned the property for a long period of time in the possession of another person can be estopped from subsequently commencing an action in court for the recovery of the property. He will be statute barred from commencing an action and this is called statutory estoppel.
If you have an abandoned property and you still have an intention to take possession of that property later on, the best thing to do is to notify the occupants timely of your intention to take over the possession of the property in subsequent time. If you did notify the occupants, you can always evict them because they will only be presumed in law as squatters or at best your tenants.
Be it as it may, an owner of a property who had abandoned the property for a long period of time can always go back to the property to recover possession, all the owner needs to do is to establish that the people in possession of the property are merely trespassers or squatters for it has been decided in a plethora of cases that a trespass no matter how long he takes place can never be converted to title.
