North Dakota · TitleNorth Dakota adverse possession: the twenty-year period and the acts that count

North Dakota requires twenty years. No action to recover real property or its possession can be maintained unless the plaintiff or the plaintiff's ancestor, predecessor or grantor was seized or possessed of the premises within twenty years before the action (N.D.C.C. §28-01-04). The person with legal title is presumed to have been in possession, and anyone else's occupation is treated as subordinate to that title, unless the premises were held adversely for twenty years before the action (§28-01-07). A claimant who entered under a written instrument or a court judgment and has occupied the land for twenty years holds it adversely (§28-01-08), with possession shown by cultivation or improvement, a substantial enclosure, use for fuel or fencing timber, or partial improvement of a known farm or lot (§28-01-09). Without a written instrument or judgment, land counts as possessed only if it was protected by a substantial enclosure or usually cultivated or improved (§28-01-11).