It is not prudent, according to a decision of the Court of Cassation, to let your neighbor exceed your plot limits, without a specific agreement. Beyond 30 years, the Court recalled, this neighbor could claim ownership of the land, whether in good or bad faith.
The Court in fact overturned an appeal court ruling which found this expansionist neighbor wrong because he was in bad faith, being perfectly aware that he was using other people’s land. This bad faith was underlined by the victim of this limit violation because, thirty years earlier, a boundary report drawn up by a surveyor, according to an amicable procedure, had precisely demarcated each person’s plots. This neighbor therefore knew perfectly well that he was using part of the adjoining land which did not belong to him as parking for his car.
Pay attention to the 30 year rule
His possession of this land was therefore equivocal and it was not done, as required by law to become owner after 30 years, in a peaceful, public, unequivocal manner and title of owner. But knowledge of the boundaries, or the agreement of the two neighbors on the delimitation of their funds, is unrelated to the property, recalled the Court of Cassation. The boundaries, like the installation of the fence, have no effect on the property, do not imply an agreement on this property and therefore do not allow one to deduce that there would be an equivocation on the property.
Furthermore, the Court has already ruled that the bad faith of the person who extends to the other does not prevent him from appropriating the land by being recognized as the owner at the end of the thirty-year period. years, provided that he behaved like an owner in the eyes of the public.
(Cass. Civ 3, 7.9.2023, E 21-25.779).
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