Argentina (AR) — civil law.
Nothing on this page describes United States practice. There is no certificate sold to an investor, no administrative sale, and no post-sale redemption window in Argentina. If you arrived carrying US assumptions, read falsos-amigos first.
Usucapión (prescripción adquisitiva)
Acquiring ownership by possession over time. Governed by the Código Civil y Comercial.
| Form | Requirement |
|---|---|
Long (prescripción larga) | 20 years of possession — pública, pacífica, continua, and con ánimo de dueño. No título or good faith required. |
Short (prescripción breve) | 10 years with justo título and buena fe. |
Ownership is declared by judicial sentence, which is then registered. There is a
separate información posesoria route in some contexts; treatment
needs_verification.
Why it appears on an auction wiki
Two reasons, pulling in opposite directions.
As a tool. Usucapión is Argentina’s mechanism for converting long, undocumented
possession into registered title — the function that, in other systems, quite different
procedures perform. Where a chain of title is broken or an owner cannot be found, this is
the route.
As a risk. A long-term occupant of a property coming to auction may be accumulating a
possessory claim. A subasta buyer inherits that dispute. Who is in the property, on what
basis, and for how long, is therefore not merely an eviction question — see
ocupantes.
It is not a title-cure action
Different function, different trigger.
Usucapiónruns on possession over time. It is not a proceeding to clear a defect or extinguish a stale claim of record, and it cannot be used as one. A buyer with a good judicial title has nothing to gain from it; a possessor without title has everything.
Interaction with estudio de títulos
The twenty-year horizon is why Argentine title study looks back roughly twenty years: defects older than the long prescription period are generally cured by it. See estudio-de-titulos.