Also known as: tacked holding period · tacking holding periods · tacking of holding periods · tacking
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A doctrine permitting successive adverse possessors to combine their periods of possession when privity exists between them, allowing the total time to satisfy the statutory period for acquiring title.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Tabitha Taylor's predecessors expanded a hedgerow and irrigation ditch onto a strip of land they believed was part of their farm based on an erroneous survey stake. Tabitha continued planting crops and grazing cattle on the same strip without interruption after inheriting the property. The periods of use by Tabitha and her predecessors combine because privity exists through the family succession under the same good-faith claim.
Tara Tran founded a startup that installed and maintained an unpermitted fiber-optic trench on adjacent land for twelve years. Tristan Thompson later acquired the startup through a stock purchase that transferred all business assets and rights, then retained the same employees who continued identical maintenance without any break. The successive periods combine because the acquisition created privity that allows the total span to meet the statutory requirement.
Privity must exist between the users so that the later user can fairly step into the position of the earlier user with respect to the claim of right. A stock acquisition that transfers all business assets and rights together with continued identical operations satisfies this requirement. The doctrine prevents forfeiture of established uses when ownership changes hands while operations remain the same.
Supporting sources
Yes. When the claimant and predecessors have used a strip under a good-faith belief it was their own because of a mistaken boundary, tacking of successive periods is allowed so the statutory period may be satisfied. The Johnson Partnership's decades of cultivation and structures on the strip under an erroneous survey stake permitted combination of the periods across generations.
Supporting sources
An express assignment of all interests in the cable route and access path creates the required privity. The buyer who continues the identical weekly traffic may add the earlier period to its own use. Without such a transfer the periods cannot be combined even if physical use continues without interruption.
Supporting sources
A strictly temporary agreement that expires without renewal does not break the required continuity when the user immediately resumes the identical adverse use. The essential attitude of mind as a claim of right remains unbroken if the servient owner takes no further steps to halt the activity.
Supporting sources
A final judgment on the merits that the use lacks legal justification interrupts the period because it breaks the essential attitude of mind required for adverse use. Later use cannot be tacked onto the pre-judgment period even if the judgment is not enforced.
Supporting sources