Adverse Possession in Connecticut: The Fifteen Year Clock and the Owner's Notice
Reviewed by DocDraft Legal Team · Connecticut · Last updated October 5, 2026
Connecticut writes its adverse possession rule from the record owner's side of the fence. Adverse possession is the doctrine that turns a long, open occupation of someone else's land into legal ownership of it once the statutory clock runs out, and Connecticut sets that clock at fifteen years. No person shall make entry into any lands or tenements but within fifteen years next after being ousted from possession, and a person who fails to enter in time is utterly disabled to make such entry afterwards (Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-575(a)). Ouster is the word that carries the Connecticut test. The General Assembly's research office states the elements as the owner being ousted of possession and kept out uninterruptedly for fifteen years by an open, visible and exclusive possession under a claim of right, with the intention of using the property as the possessor's own, and without the owner's consent (OLR Report 2006-R-0032, citing Goodman v. Quadrato, 142 Conn. 398). Connecticut asks for no property tax payment. Taxes appear nowhere in the operative text of section 52-575, and no deed shortens the fifteen years. What the legislature gave the record owner instead, in 1996, is a recordable counter-move: written notice to the occupant of the owner's intention to dispute the right of possession, served and recorded under sections 47-39 and 47-40, is deemed an interruption of the use and possession, provided an action follows within one year of the recording. A possessor converts fifteen years into record title through an action to settle title (Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-31). Attorney review is available through DocDraft.
Find out where you stand in Connecticut
Which side of the boundary question are you on?
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How long does adverse possession take in Connecticut?
Fifteen years. Connecticut bars the record owner from making entry into any lands or tenements except within fifteen years after the owner's right or title first accrues, or within fifteen years after being ousted from possession, and an owner who does not enter in time is utterly disabled to make that entry afterwards (Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-575(a)).
Do you have to pay the property taxes to claim adverse possession in Connecticut?
No. Connecticut imposes no tax payment element. The word taxes does not appear in the operative text of Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-575, and the General Assembly's statement of the elements lists possession that is open, visible, exclusive, hostile, under a claim of right, actual, notorious, continuous and uninterrupted, with no tax requirement.
How can a Connecticut owner interrupt an adverse possession claim?
By written notice. An owner who gives the occupant written notice of the intention to dispute the right of possession, then serves and records it under Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-39 and 47-40, interrupts the use and possession, which prevents a right being acquired afterwards, provided an action is commenced within one year after recording (Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-575(a)).
Which land cannot be taken by adverse possession in Connecticut?
Connecticut's express statutory bars cover railroad and canal land, land of a railroad or street railway corporation used for corporate purposes, land of a nonprofit land-holding organization or under a conservation restriction, and class I or class II land of an investor-owned water company (Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-26 and 47-27).
Connecticut adverse possession at a glance
Adverse possession is the rule under which a person who openly occupies land belonging to someone else can end up owning it, once every requirement has been satisfied for the full statutory period. Connecticut sets that period at fifteen years and frames it as a deadline on the owner rather than a prize for the occupant: no person shall make entry into any lands but within fifteen years after being ousted from possession (Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-575(a)). There is no tax element here. The operative text of section 52-575 never mentions taxes, and no written instrument shortens the fifteen years. What Connecticut does instead is arm the record owner. Written notice disputing the right of possession, served and recorded under sections 47-39 and 47-40, counts as an interruption, provided suit follows within one year of recording.
A reset stone wall in Litchfield County, stopped by a recorded notice
A rebuilt stone wall in the Litchfield hills makes the Connecticut version of this problem concrete. Say the wall was reset roughly twelve feet onto the abutting lot in 2008, and the strip behind it has been mowed, planted and used as a side yard every season since. On a plain fifteen year count the period would have closed in 2023 (Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-575(a)), and no tax receipt is needed, because section 52-575 asks for none. Then the land records turn up something else: in 2019 the abutting owner served and recorded a notice disputing the right of possession, and sued inside the following year. Connecticut deems such a notice an interruption of the use and possession (Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-575(a), 47-39, 47-40). What these facts add up to is for the Superior Court.
Relevant Laws
Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-575 (the fifteen year period and the owner's interrupting notice)
Subsection (a) bars entry into any lands or tenements except within fifteen years after the right or title first accrues or after ouster from possession, disables a late entrant, and provides that written notice disputing the right of possession, served and recorded as provided in sections 47-39 and 47-40, is deemed an interruption of the use and possession if an action is commenced within one year after recording. Subsection (b) allows five further years for an owner who was a minor, non compos mentis or imprisoned.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-39 (service of the interrupting notice)
Requires the notice to be served like an original summons in a civil action on the person claiming or using the land, or an agent or guardian within the state, with a copy otherwise affixed to the house or another conspicuous part of the premises, and requires the notice with the return of service to be recorded in the land records of the town where the land lies within three months after service.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-40 (notice when the occupant is unknown)
Provides that where the party is unknown the notice may be given by conspicuously posting a copy on the estate and serving it on the person to whom the premises were last assessed for taxes in the place where they lie, and recording it as the preceding sections require.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-31 (action to settle title)
Allows a person claiming title to or any interest in real property to sue anyone who may claim to own it or hold an adverse estate, interest, lien or encumbrance, for the purpose of determining that claim and to clear up all doubts and disputes and quiet and settle the title. The complaint must describe the property and state the plaintiff's claim and the manner in which it was acquired, and the court renders judgment settling the title.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-27 (land that cannot be adversely possessed)
Provides that no length of possession, use or occupancy creates or continues any right in land belonging to a railroad or street railway corporation and used for its corporate purposes, in land belonging to a nonprofit land-holding organization or subject to a conservation restriction held by one, or in class I or class II land under section 25-37c belonging to an investor-owned water company.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-26 (railroad, railway and canal land)
Provides that where an adjoining owner or occupant has since June 10, 1831 taken railroad or canal land into an enclosure or erected a building on it, or where any person encloses or builds on land of a railway company within its located electric railway limits, no adverse possession of the land so enclosed or built upon confers any title to it.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-21 (a deed by an ousted owner is void)
Provides that any conveyance or lease, for any term, of any building, land or tenement of which the grantor or lessor is ousted by the entry and possession of another is void unless made to the person in actual possession. The published annotations state that the ouster which renders the deed void is the same ouster required to establish adverse possession.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-25 (no right to light by adverse occupation)
Provides that no occupant of real estate may acquire by adverse occupation the right to keep, sustain or enjoy any window or light so as to prevent the owner of adjoining premises from erecting and maintaining a building there.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-37 (easement by adverse use, fifteen years)
Provides that no person may acquire a right of way or any other easement from, in, upon or over the land of another by adverse use or enjoyment of it unless the use has continued uninterrupted for fifteen years. This produces a right of use rather than title to the land.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 51-345 (venue, the judicial district where the property is located)
Sets where civil process is returnable, including to the judicial district where the property is located or lawfully attached, which is how an action to settle title reaches the correct Connecticut Superior Court location.
Connecticut General Assembly, Office of Legislative Research Report 2006-R-0032 (Adverse Possession)
The legislature's own research report states the Connecticut elements, that adverse possession is accomplished by an open, visible and exclusive possession uninterruptedly for a fifteen year period, and summarises the 1996, 1999 and 2002 amendments, including the owner's recordable interrupting notice and the bars protecting nonprofit conservation land and investor-owned water company land.
Connecticut Judicial Branch Law Libraries: Connecticut Law About Adverse Possession
The Judicial Branch law library research guide for adverse possession. It lists the selected statutes that govern, sections 47-21, 47-25, 47-26, 47-27 and 47-31 in the Land Titles chapter and section 52-575 in the Statute of Limitations chapter, and describes itself as only a starting point for research.
Regional Variances
Connecticut adverse possession rules at a glance
Statutory period
Fifteen years. No person shall make entry into any lands or tenements but within fifteen years next after the right or title first descends or accrues, or within fifteen years after being ousted from possession, and a person not entering in that time is utterly disabled to make such entry afterwards (Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-575(a)).
Property taxes
Irrelevant. Connecticut has no tax payment element and no tax-based shortening of the period. The word taxes does not appear in the operative text of section 52-575. Taxes surface only on the owner's side, in the rule for serving an interrupting notice on an unknown occupant (Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-40).
Elements
The owner ousted of possession and kept out uninterruptedly for fifteen years by an open, visible and exclusive possession, under a claim of right, with the intention of using the property as the possessor's own, and without the owner's consent. Restated as hostile, actual, open, notorious, exclusive, continuous and uninterrupted (OLR Report 2006-R-0032).
Colour of title
No effect on the period. Section 52-575 sets a single fifteen year period with no shorter alternative for a possessor holding a written instrument. The published annotations instead state that without colour of title the claim is limited to the area of land actually possessed.
Acreage cap
None. The word acre does not appear anywhere in Conn. Gen. Stat. chapter 926, which houses section 52-575, and no acreage figure appears in chapter 821, which houses the Land Titles provisions on adverse possession.
How an owner stops the clock
Written notice to the occupant of the owner's intention to dispute the right of possession, served like an original summons and recorded in the town land records within three months of service, is deemed an interruption of the use and possession, provided an action is commenced within one year after the recording (Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-575(a), 47-39, 47-40).
Owner under a disability
Five extra years. An owner who was a minor, non compos mentis or imprisoned when the right or title first accrued, and that owner's heirs, may make entry and serve and record the notice within five years after full age, sound mind or release from prison, or the heirs within five years after death (Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-575(b)).
Government owned land
The annotations published with section 52-575 state that the limitation does not run against the state, and does not run against the public, although the public may abandon a right. There is no statutory sentence to that effect inside Connecticut's adverse possession provisions, so this rests on the annotated case rule.
Land expressly protected by statute
Railroad and canal land (Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-26), railroad and street railway corporation land used for corporate purposes, land of a nonprofit land-holding organization and land under a conservation restriction it holds, and class I or class II land of an investor-owned water company (Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-27).
Perfecting title
An action to settle title under Conn. Gen. Stat. 47-31, brought in the Connecticut Superior Court and returnable to the judicial district where the property is located (Conn. Gen. Stat. 51-345(a)). The complaint must describe the property and state the manner in which the plaintiff acquired the title, and the court renders judgment quieting and settling it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Other Connecticut guides
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Connecticut Notice to Quit: 2026 Landlord Rules & 3-Day Statute
Dealing With Debt Collectors in Connecticut (2026)
Expunging a Criminal Record in Connecticut (2026)
Filing a Workplace Harassment Complaint in Connecticut
Filing Chapter 7 Bankruptcy in Connecticut (2026)
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