Also known as: tacking · tack holding periods · adverse possession tacking
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
2 senses
A doctrine permitting successive periods of adverse possession or prescriptive use by predecessors in privity to be combined to satisfy the statutory period. The periods combine when each possessor acts under a good-faith claim of right and the use remains continuous and uninterrupted.
A doctrine permitting successive periods of adverse possession or prescriptive use by predecessors in privity to be combined to satisfy the statutory period. The periods combine when each possessor acts under a good-faith claim of right and the use remains continuous and uninterrupted.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
A rule under which a transferee's holding period for property includes the transferor's holding period when the transferee takes a carryover basis. The tacked period determines whether gain or loss on a later disposition qualifies as long-term.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
A rule under which a transferee's holding period for property includes the transferor's holding period when the transferee takes a carryover basis. The tacked period determines whether gain or loss on a later disposition qualifies as long-term.
Each sense below has its own examples, sources, and questions.
The Johnson Partnership's predecessors began cultivating a disputed strip of Beth's orchard in the 1960s under a mistaken boundary stake. Successive family members continued planting crops, grazing cattle, and maintaining a shed and ditches on the strip without interruption. Because each generation acted under the same good-faith claim of right, the periods combine to satisfy the statutory requirement for adverse possession.
Privity exists when a later user succeeds to the precise claim of right asserted by the earlier user. A stock acquisition that transfers all business assets and rights, followed by identical continued operations by the same personnel, establishes the required privity for tacking.
Supporting sources
A strictly temporary access agreement that expires without renewal does not interrupt continuity when the user immediately resumes the identical adverse use. The essential attitude of mind required for adverse use remains unbroken if no permanent subordination to the owner's title occurs.
Supporting sources
An unrecorded mistaken boundary does not prevent tacking when each successive possessor continues the same good-faith agricultural use under the original error. The periods combine because the claim of right remains traceable to the same mistaken belief.
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Thomas Thompson receives shares of stock as a gift from his father. The father had held the shares for eighteen months before the transfer. When Thomas sells the shares nine months later, his total holding period includes the father's eighteen months because he takes a carryover basis.
Property received from a decedent takes a basis equal to fair market value at death. If sold within one year of death, the property is deemed to have a long-term holding period regardless of the actual time held.
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