This is why Adverse Possession has been a principle of law for thousands of years.
Without such a concept, there can be no private ownership of land. Because someone can always come out of the woodwork with an old document that says the land your family has owned for tens or hundreds of years is actually their land.
Arguably that reason makes less sense now, given that record keeping and accessibility is much better. It should now be relatively trivial to ensure you own any given land in the land registry.
The bigger argument for it now is making land use more efficient.
Without such a concept, there can be no private ownership of land. Because someone can always come out of the woodwork with an old document that says the land your family has owned for tens or hundreds of years is actually their land.
http://dirt.umkc.edu/archives/dirt2003/mar2003/adverse%20pos...