squatter's right

noun

Law Informal.

1. a claim to real property, especially public land, that may be granted to a person who has openly possessed and continuously occupied it without legal authority for a prescribed period of years.

Word History and Origins

Origin of squatter's right¹

An Americanism dating back to 1855–60

Example Sentences

Informally known as the “squatter’s right,” it holds that if you take someone’s property and openly use it for long enough, it can become yours by law.

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It may be a kind of squatter's right, or anything else, or it may have no standing at all.

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Up to that time no settler had more than a squatter's right.

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We did not fail to examine our shoes before putting them on in the morning, lest the scorpions should have established a squatter's right therein.

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The folk pay for their houses a nominal rental of a bushel of wheat per annum, in order to secure the owner's proprietary claim, which would otherwise pass to the occupier by squatter's right after thirty years of unmolested occupation.

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