Title and transfer
Tacking
Adding a predecessor’s period of possession to your own to complete the statutory period
Adverse possession and prescription both require possession or use that runs continuously for the period the state fixes, and few claimants occupy for the whole of it themselves. Tacking lets successive possessors add their periods together, provided each is connected to the one before by a deed, an inheritance or another recognized transfer. That connection is called privity, and without it the periods stay separate.
Easily confused with
Continuity is about there being no gap in the possession itself; tacking is about who was doing the possessing. A claim can be perfectly continuous and still fail because the people holding it were unrelated.
How the exam asks about it
The relationship between the possessors is the whole item. An unbroken chain of connected occupants may tack; a stranger who moves in after the first one walks away starts the clock from zero.
Quick check: Tacking
One question. Pick an answer to see the explanation.
Which term is being defined: “Adding a predecessor’s period of possession to your own to complete the statutory period”?
Related terms
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