How many years must pass for acquisitive prescription (“usucapión”)?

Question

José Manuel Alburquerque · Accepted Answer

In Catalonia, twenty years for properties and three for movable assets, with no need for title or good faith. They are counted from when the person starts to possess as owner, not from when they entered the property with the owner's permission or as a tenant. The period starts again from scratch if the owner serves a formal demand through a notary or brings a court claim, or if the possessor acknowledges that the asset belongs to someone else. In most of the rest of Spain, under the Spanish Civil Code (“Código civil”), it is ten years for properties if there is title and good faith, twenty if the owner lives abroad and thirty if either of the two is missing. This is the system the “Tribunal Supremo”, Spain's Supreme Court, applied in 2026 to the Pazo de Meirás, in Galicia. The periods and when they start The “Código Civil de Cataluña”, the Catalan Civil Code, sets twenty years for properties and three for movable assets. There are no shorter periods for those with title and good faith. To count them, these rules must be borne in mind: They run from when the person possesses as owner. Someone who moved in as a tenant or with the owner's permission does not start the clock until they make it clear, through acts known to the owner, that they are now behaving as the owner. Ceasing to pay the rent is not enough. The time during which the asset was possessed by whoever passed it on, such as the possessor's parents or the seller, can be added. The period does not run between spouses or members of a “pareja estable”, the Catalan stable partnership, while they live together. For example, someone who began possessing a strip of land as owner on 15 September 2008 acquires it on 15 September 2028 if nothing interrupts the period. If on 10 May 2020 the owner served a formal demand on them through a notary, the period started again that day and will not be completed until 10 May 2040. When the period is interrupted The Catalan code sets out these grounds for interruption, which make the period start again from scratch: The possessor stops possessing. The possessor acknowledges the owner's right, in words or by conduct, for example by asking the owner's permission or paying the owner rent. The owner objects in court or both agree to refer the matter to arbitration. In that case, the new period starts when the decision ending the proceedings becomes final. The owner serves a formal demand on the possessor through a notary. The list does not include an ordinary letter or a “burofax”, a certified letter with proof of content, so an owner who wants to interrupt the period must use a notarial demand or a court claim. What the Pazo de Meirás judgment teaches The publication explains the 2026 judgment in which the Supreme Court confirmed that the Pazo de Meirás must be returned to the State. As the Pazo is in Galicia, the case is governed by the Spanish Civil Code, which requires thirty years of possession as owner from anyone who lacks title or good faith. The Supreme Court held that the State had possessed it as owner from 1938 to 1975, by using it as the official residence of the Head of State. The heirs' possession as owners could only begin in the early nineties, when the State stopped guarding it. Thirty years had not passed since then. In addition, the Pazo could not be acquired by prescription while it remained assigned to a public service. The judgment offers lessons that also apply in Catalonia: The years are counted from when the person possesses as owner, not from when the asset is occupied. Paying the IBI (the local property tax) or being recorded as the holder in the Cadastre (“Catastro”) neither proves ownership nor interrupts someone else's acquisitive prescription. A mere delay by the owner in making a claim does not cause them to lose their right. For it to be lost through what the courts call unfair delay (“retraso desleal”), there must also be acts by the owner that led the possessor to trust that no claim would be made. What changes in Catalonia is the period, which is twenty years rather than thirty. In addition, under the Spanish Civil Code the owner's action to recover a property becomes time-barred after thirty years, as the publication says, whereas the Catalan code says it never becomes time-barred. So in Catalonia the owner only loses the asset if someone else has acquired it by prescription.