Jeremy's Weblog

I recently graduated from Harvard Law School. This is my weblog. It tries to be funny. E-mail me if you like it. For an index of what's lurking in the archives, sorted by category, click here.

Wednesday, February 12, 2003

Learned about adverse possession in Property class today. It's kind of the property equivalent of common-law marriage, I guess. If you act like you're the owner of a piece of land for a certain number of years, and you build stuff on it, and live there, and the real owner should reasonably know you're there but doesn't do anything about it, the land becomes yours.

So, with that in mind, here's a song about an elderly couple where the wife wasn't really in love with her husband, but after so many years of living together, he's taken adverse possession of her heart.

It was never true love
We've been stuck here as two
You may have loved me
But I didn't love you

But our life was arranged
This was how it should be
Now a half-cent'ry later
You adversely possess me

You've taken my heart
And given your own
We're always together
Our bond is well-known

It's exclusive, there's not
Any other with me
And for all of these years
With continuity

At the start, was adverse
I did not love you well
But you said to hang in there
And time, it would tell

And in this state, the law
Says possession's year 10
And at that point you sued me
And then

You were declared
The adverse possessor of my heart
I did not love you
Right from the start
But you met all the elements
Now your title is clear
You adversely possess me
In my heart, right here