I've been through this myself and what you need to do is A) get your property surveyed so you know EXACTLY where the property lines are. B) Brush up on the "adverse possession" laws in your state. If you find out that you do indeed own the property and file the survey with "land evidence" at your city hall, its considered a legal document and you'd have proof that you own the property.
You can protect your property by putting up "No Tresspassing signs" but the tresspassers can take them down as easily as you put them up. Another way you can protect your property is to give whoever is using it permission in writing and have them acknowledge it. That way a judge could never give them a prescriptive easement or rights to use your property (because you would have already given them permission).
One thing you don't want to do is not use the space yourself and let others continually and exclusively and visibly use it because THEN you could lose rights to it EVEN THOUGH in some states you may be paying taxes on it.
Here is how Wikipedia defines it:
[edit] Requirements for adverse possession
Adverse possession requires three elements in regards to the
possession of the property
[1]:
- physical: open and notorious (visible); actual; exclusive;
- mental: hostile;
- temporal: continuous (uninterrupted).
In simple terms, this means that those attempting to claim the property are occupying it
exclusively (keeping out others) and openly as if it were their own. Some jurisdictions permit accidental adverse possession as might occur with a
surveying error. Generally, the openly hostile possession must be continuous (although not necessarily constant) without challenge or permission from the lawful owner, for a fixed
statutory period in order to acquire title. Where the property is of a type ordinarily only occupied during certain times (such as a summer cottage), the adverse possessor may only need to have exclusive, open, hostile possession during those successive useful periods, for the required number of years.
[edit] Effect of adverse possession
An adverse possessor will be committing a
trespass on the property that they have taken and the owner of the property could cause them to be evicted by an action in trespass ("ejectment") or by bringing an action for possession. All common law jurisdictions require that the action of trespass is brought within a specified time, after which the true owner is assumed to have
acquiesced. The effect of a failure by the land owner to evict the adverse possessor depends on the
jurisdiction.
In some (such as
England and Wales), the title of the landowner will be automatically extinguished once the relevant limitation period has passed. This process now only applies to unregistered land.
In other jurisdictions, the adverse possessor acquires merely an
equitable title: the land owner being a trustee of the property for them.
Adverse possession only extends to the property adversely possessed. If the original owner had a title to a greater area (or volume) of property, the adverse possessor does not obtain all of it.
In some jurisdictions, a person who has successfully obtained title to property by adverse possession may (optionally) bring an action in
land court to "
quiet title" of record in their names on some or all of the former owner's property. Such action will make it simpler to convey the interest to others in a definitive manner, and also serves as notice that there is a new "owner" of record, which may be a pre-requisite to certain benefits (including equity loans, or judicial standing as an
abutter). However, even if such action is not taken, the title is legally theirs, with most of the benefits and duties, including paying
property taxes to avoid losing title to the tax collector. The effects of having a stranger to the title paying taxes on property may vary from one jurisdiction to another.
Adverse possession does not typically work against property owned by a government agency. However, there will be a more complicated analysis if private property were taken by
eminent domain, control given to a private corporation (such as a
railroad), then abandoned.
Where land is registered under a
Torrens title registration system or similar, special rules apply. It may be that the land cannot be affected by adverse possession (as was the case in
England and Wales from 1875 to 1926), or that special rules apply.
Adverse possession may also apply to territorial rights. In the United States,
Georgia lost an
island in the
Savannah River to
South Carolina, when that state used
fill from
dredging to attach the island to its own shore. Since Georgia knew of this yet did nothing about it, the
U.S. Supreme Court (which has
original jurisdiction in such matters) granted this land to South Carolina, even though the
Treaty of Beaufort (1787) explicitly specified that the
river's islands belonged to Georgia.
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They're making claims of "common property" and threatening to block a fence permit.
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