Do you know usucaption? Are you interested?

Join us to find out everything about the most curious and cheapest way of acquiring assets under Spanish law.

Among the most curious forms that our legal system provides for the acquisition of rights, we undoubtedly include Usucapión. This considers that when a right is exercised during the stipulated time, without claim from its true owner, the possessor is considered as its owner with full rights. A completely atypical way of obtaining property that is based on two reasons.

- The need to protect who deserves ownership of the real right object of usucapion.

-The punishment of the true owner for his negligence and inaction.

Who can usucapir and what can be usucapir

When assessing whether we can be benefited by usucapión we must take into account what can be acquired by usucapión and who can acquire it. The Civil Code establishes any right in rem as subject to usucapion. And it considers qualified to acquire by this method all those who have legal capacity. As we can see, there are quite broad criteria for the object and capacity that have nothing special, therefore the real difficulty in determining whether we are likely to acquire goods or rights by this method is found in the material and temporal requirements.

Usucaption Requirements

To acquire assets or rights through ordinary usucaption, we must meet the following requirements.

-Possession-The key criterion for usucapir is to have possession, the usucapión is that the usucapiente has held possession of the property in an uninterrupted and public manner so that he is perceived as the true owner of it.

-Good faith-The usucapiente has to think that he is really the owner of the property. He cannot be aware that he is not the true owner or hide that knowledge to have this requirement.

- Fair title - This process must be based on an enabling title for the transfer of the asset or right even when it suffers from nullity defects, not nullity, in which case it would not be considered a fair title

- Time - All the above requirements must last over time for a period of 3 years for personal property, 10 years for real property between present and 20 between absent. During this time the requirements must be given in an interrupted way, we are not only referring to a physical interruption of possession but also to an interruption through judicial or extrajudicial claim.

Extraordinary usucaption

Extraordinary usucapion is a special form of usucaption that provides for the acquisition of real rights over assets when there is no good faith or fair title. For this modality, the assets must be held as the owner and uninterruptedly for 6 years for personal property and for 30 years for personal property.

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