Usucaption As A Means Of Acquiring The Ownership Title

• Author: Ciprian Raul Romitan
• Pages: 31-39

LESIJ NO. XXV, VOL. 2/2018

USUCAPTION AS A MEANS OF ACQUIRING THE OWNERSHIP TITLE

Ciprian Raul ROMIȚAN

Abstract

According to the Civil Code in force, the ownership title may be acquired, according to law, by

convention, legal or testamentary inheritance, accession, usucaption, as effect of th e good -faith

possession in case of movable assets and fruits, by occupation, tradition, as well as by court decision,

when it is not conveyancing by itself. Moreover, according to the law, t he ownership title may also be

acquired by to the effect of an administrative act, and the law may further regulate other means of

acquiring the ownership title.

Therefore, the usucaption is that modality of acquiring the ownership title and other main real

rights by exercising an uninterrupted possession over an asset, within the term and under the conditions

provided for by the legislation in force.

In Romanian modern law, referred to as acquisitive prescription, usucaption was first regulated

in the Civil Code adopted on 1864, which stipulated two types, i.e.: short-term usucaption, of 10 to 20

years and long-term usucaption, of 30 years.

The institution of usucaption is justified, in relation to the situation of the owner, as the need for

stability of the situations and of the legal relations imposes, at a certain time and subject to compliance

with certain conditions provided for by the law, the acknowledgment of certain legal effects to the long

appearance of property, until transforming a situation de facto in a situation de jure. Concurrently, as

the courts also considered, in justifying the institution of usucaption one cannot put aside the situation

of the former owner, meaning that, indirectly, the usucaption is also a sanction against the former

owner’s passivity, who waived his own good and has not been interested in it for a long time, leaving

it in the possession of another person who behaved as owner or as holder of another main real right.

Depending on the nature of the asset susceptible of usucaption, the usucaption may be of two

main types: immovable usucaption and movable usucaption. In its turn, immovable usucaption may be

extra-tabular immovable usucaption and immovable tabular usucaption.

As o ne will establish during the study, the extra-tabular usucaption operates in favor of the

holder of the asset representing the subject of an ownership title over an immovable asset that was not

registered with the land register, tabular immovable usucaption operates in the favor of a person who

is registered in the land register as the rightful onwer of a key immovable property right, only if the

registration was maded without “legitimate grounds”.

Keywords: usucapio, right of ownership, p ossession, real estate usucapio, movable assets

usucapio.

1. Introduction

The article presents the usucapio as a

modality of acquiring the right of ownership

and other main real rights by exercising an

 Assistant Professor, PhD. Faculty of Law, “Romanian-American” University, Associate Lawyer “Roș și

Asociații” Law Firm (e-mail: ciprian.romitan@rvsa.ro).

uninterrupted possession over an asset,

within the term and under the conditions

provided for by the legislation in force. It

should be mentioned that were taken into

consideration the relevant dispositions of the