The protection of publicly owned land from acquisitions through long-term possession

Land is an essential resource for public administration and infrastructure. Even fallow land that happens to be publicly owned may prove to be useful in the future, even if only as a source of revenue when the land is sold to developers. Poor administration and management of publicly owned land, however, may result in citizens occupying publicly owned land. In many jurisdictions, the user of another person’s land may acquire that land after a certain period of time, provided that the non-owner’s physical control is strong enough to qualify as what is called ‘(proprietary) possession’ in most jurisdictions. In common law jurisdictions, an acquisition through long-term possession is based on ‘adverse possession’. In civil law jurisdictions, the functional equivalents are, for instance, ‘acquisitions by prescription’, Ersitzung, or usucapione. Many jurisdictions protect publicly owned land better from a non-owner’s long-term possession than privately owned land and prevent public bodies from being deprived of their ownership. This raises the question of why, how and to