Can a tenant-in-common (tenant in common) claim exclusive possession of the property?

"New York", United States of America

The following excerpt is from Myers v. Bartholomew, 674 N.Y.S.2d 259, 697 N.E.2d 160, 91 N.Y.2d 630 (N.Y. 1998):

Under the common law, tenants-in-common have long been afforded a measure of extra protection from adverse possession claims asserted by their cotenants. In a tenancy-in-common, each cotenant has an equal right to possess and enjoy all or any portion of the property as if the sole owner. Consequently, nonpossessory cotenants do not relinquish any of their rights as tenants-in-common when another cotenant assumes exclusive possession of the property. Therein lies the danger: while a nonpossessory cotenant seemingly has nothing to fear from another cotenant's exclusive possession, such possession could conceivably form the basis of an adverse possession claim against the unsuspecting nonpossessory cotenant, who would have had no reason even to protest the purportedly adverse possession (Edwards v. Bishop, 4 N.Y. 61).

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