Delaware · TitleDelaware adverse possession: the 20-year limit to recover land

Delaware's limitation rules for real actions are short and old. No person may make an entry into any lands, tenements or hereditaments except within 20 years after the person's right or title first descended or accrued (10 Del. C. §7901). And no person may maintain any writ of right or action, or make any prescription or claim, to land based on the seisin or possession of the person, an ancestor or a predecessor, unless that person, ancestor or predecessor had actual seisin of the premises within 20 years before the action (§7902). In practice, an owner who has been out of possession for 20 years while someone else held the land faces those limits, and a claimant relying on long possession needs the 20-year period. Whether a particular possession was adverse is a question for the courts and the title company.