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https://theconversation.com/if-you-squat-in-a-vacant-property-does-the-law-give-you-the-house-for-free-well-sort-of-227556>
"Nothing excites law students like the idea of a free house. Or alternatively,
enrages them. It depends on their politics. As a result, academics condemned to
teaching property law find it hard to resist the “doctrine of adverse
possession”. The fact that a person can change the locks on someone else’s
house, wait 12 years, and claim it as their own, makes students light up in a
way that the Strata Schemes Management Act never will.
The idea of “squatters’ rights” has received a lot of media attention recently
amid the grim reality of the Australian housing market. It fuels commentators
such as Jordan van den Berg, who critiques bad landlords on social media.
Casting back to his days as a law student, he’s promoting the doctrine of
adverse possession as a way of making use of vacant properties.
As interesting as the doctrine is, it has little relevance in modern Australia.
While it is necessary to limit the time someone has to bring legal proceedings
to recover land – typically 12 or 15 years, depending on which state you’re in
– most people don’t need that long to notice someone else is living in their
house. If a family member is occupying a home that someone else has inherited
or a tenant refuses to vacate at the end of a lease, owners tend to bring
actions to recover their land pronto.
So where did this doctrine come from, and what has it meant in practice?"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
