What is adverse possession in Arizona?

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Accepted Answer

## Adverse Possession in Arizona

Adverse possession is "an actual and visible appropriation of the land, commenced and continued under a claim of right inconsistent with and hostile to the claim of another."  To qualify, possession must also be "peaceable," meaning continuous and not interrupted by an adverse action to recover the estate, and it need not be held by the same person throughout, so long as successive possessors share a privity of estate.  For these purposes, "real property" includes mines and mining claims.

## The Five Limitation Periods

Arizona law bars the record owner's recovery action after different periods depending on how the property is held:

- Two years — where the party in possession claims the property by right of possession only, with no requirement to show title or color of title. 
- Three years — where the possessor is in peaceable and adverse possession under "title" (a regular chain of transfer from or under sovereignty of the soil) or "color of title" (a consecutive chain of transfer with defects such as unrecorded, improperly recorded, or merely written muniments, not involving a want of intrinsic fairness and honesty). 
- Five years (city or town lot) — where the possessor holds a recorded deed to a lot in a city or town, claims ownership, and — personally or through grantors — has claimed ownership and paid the taxes for at least five consecutive years before the action is brought. 
- Five years (recorded deed plus use and taxes) — where the possessor is in peaceable and adverse possession, is cultivating, using, or enjoying the property, is paying taxes on it, and claims under a duly recorded deed; this benefit is denied to anyone claiming under a forged deed or a deed executed under a forged power of attorney. 
- Ten years (no deed) — where the possessor has peaceable and adverse possession and cultivates, uses, and enjoys the property without any deed; this possession may not embrace more than 160 acres (or fewer acres if less is actually enclosed), unless the claim's boundaries are fixed by a duly recorded written memorandum of title, in which case possession extends to those boundaries.

## Effect of the Bar

Once an action for recovery is barred under any of these provisions, the person who pleads and is entitled to the bar is held to have full title precluding all claims.

## Tolling for Disability

The limitation clock does not run against an owner who, at the time the adverse possession commences or the title first descends, is under eighteen years of age or of unsound mind; that person gets the full period after the disability is removed.  For an owner who is imprisoned when the adverse possession begins, the tolling lasts only until the person discovers — or with reasonable diligence should have discovered — the right to sue or defend, after which the full period runs.

Which period governs a particular parcel turns on the manner of possession, the documentation held, and the tax-payment history described above; a licensed Arizona attorney can apply these rules to a specific situation.