Tacking can establish adverse possession

Reaffirming the basic mechanics of adverse possession a Virginia court holds that successive adverse possessors can tack their time together to meet the statutory period. So an adverse possessor who occupies land for 10 years and sells their property to a buyer who also occupies it for five more years satisfies a 15-year requirement for adverse possession. And when the record owner sells their property, they have now lost title to the adversely possessed property and have no power to transfer that property to their buyer. The recording statutes do not protect the buyer because they are on constructive notice of what an inspection of the property would show, i.e., that their neighbor is occupying property described in the deed. That inquiry would reveal the transfer of title by adverse possession and so the buyer is not actually a “bona fide purchaser” without notice. See Ho v. Rahman, 896 S.E.2d 826 (Va. Ct. App. 2024).