New York · TitleNew York adverse possession: ten years, claim of right and boundary encroachments

New York defines an adverse possessor as a person or entity that occupies another's real property, with or without knowledge of the other's superior ownership rights, in a manner that would give the owner a cause of action for ejectment. The possessor gains title to the occupied property when the statute of limitations for an action to recover real property expires – ten years under CPLR 212(a) – provided the occupancy has been adverse, under claim of right, open and notorious, continuous, exclusive and actual. A claim of right means a reasonable basis for the belief that the property belongs to the adverse possessor; it isn't required if the owners throughout the period can't be found in the county clerk's records and located by reasonable means (RPAPL §501). If the claim rests on a written instrument or a judgment, continued occupation for ten years of the premises it describes, or part of them, counts (§511), and land counts as occupied where acts were open enough to put a reasonably diligent owner on notice, where it was protected by a substantial enclosure, or in the farm and woodland cases the statute lists (§512). Without a written instrument, only the premises actually occupied are held adversely, and only by open acts or a substantial enclosure (§§521, 522). De minimis non-structural encroachments – fences, hedges, shrubbery, plantings, sheds and non-structural walls – and lawn mowing or similar maintenance across a boundary line are deemed permissive and non-adverse (§543).