Adverse Possession, Prescription, Boundary Agreements, and Quiet Title
Elements of adverse possession
Most jurisdictions require that possession be actual, open and notorious, exclusive, continuous for the statutory period, and hostile or under claim of right. Some add payment of taxes, color of title, or a particular statutory period for improved parcels. Tacking successive possessors is allowed only with privity, such as a conveyance or inheritance. Color of title can support constructive possession of the whole described parcel in some states.
Hostility explained
Hostility refers to possession without the owner's permission and under a claim of right; it does not mean ill will or knowing wrongdoing. Under the objective standard, possession by mistake is still adverse, so a fence placed in the wrong place can ripen into title. Under the Maine doctrine, a mistaken possessor lacks the intent, and the claim fails. Know which rule the question assumes.
Prescription and boundary doctrines
Prescription applies the same use-based analysis to easements. The agreed boundary doctrine requires uncertainty about the true line, an agreement, and performance or acquiescence, often plus the line's being actually marked. Acquiescence theories require a period of mutual recognition of a line. Quiet title actions clear competing claims and are often joined with a boundary determination by the court.
Worked example
A fence built in 1998 sits two feet onto the neighbor's land; both owners treat it as the line and the neighbor records nothing. If the state requires ten years of open, hostile, continuous possession and it is now 2024, the possessor likely prevails under the objective standard, but only for the strip actually possessed, not the whole deed parcel, absent color of title.
Traps
Permissive use, family occupancy, and co-tenancy defeat adversity. Boundary agreements resolve uncertainty, not known encroachments. Adverse possession does not run against the government in most jurisdictions.