Opinion ID: 2280683
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hostility of the Possession.

Text: Judge Horney, for the Court, quite recently stated the meaning of hostility in adverse possession cases in this manner: The `hostility' essential to acquisition of title by adverse possession does not necessarily import enmity or ill will, but rather that the claimant's possession be unaccompanied by any recognition, express or inferable from the circumstances, of the real owner's right to the land. Hungerford v. Hungerford, 234 Md. 338, 340. See also Clayton v. Jensen, 240 Md. 337. Little elaboration on this element is needed. The facts, as we related them above, show no indication of any acknowledgement of the record owners' title for more than 50 years. There is no doubt, we think, that the Blickenstaffs' and their predecessors' possession was hostile in the sense that the term is used in adverse-possession law.