Hazakah, (taking possession) is a term expressing three main concepts in Jewish law: (1) a mode of acquiring ownership; (2) a means of proving ownership or rights in property; (3) a factual-legal presumption (praesumptio juris) as to the existence of a particular fact or state of affairs. In its first connotation hazakah creates a new legal reality, unlike the latter two cases where it is merely instrumental in proving or presuming an existing one. Possession per se of immovable property (karka or mekarke'in, lit. "land," as opposed to metaltelin, "movable property") known to have belonged to another does not displace the title of the legal owner (mara kamma, "first owner") thereto, for "land is never stolen" (karka einah nigzelet; BK 95a; TJ, BK 10:6, 7c) and "is always in the possession of its owner" (BM 102b). The possessor is accordingly required to prove that he acquired the property in a legally recognized way. If, however, he has held undisturbed possession in the manner of an owner for a period of three consecutive years, without protest from the previous owner, the possessor's plea that he purchased the property or received it as a gift (from the first owner or his father) and that the deed thereto has been lost, is believed. Where his possession is not accompanied by such a claim of right (she-ein immah ta'anah) but merely with the contention that "no one ever said anything to me," the ḥazakah is not established (BB 3:3). Where the property is purchased or inherited from another, the holder's mere plea (some scholars require proof on his part) that the deceased or seller held possession of the property in the manner of an owner, for even one day, will validate the occupier's ḥazakah, for "he cannot be expected to know how his father came by the property" (Rashbam, BB 41a). For this reason the court would "plead the cause" of the heir or purchaser (BB 23a), to the effect that he came by the property in a lawful manner. In Jewish law ḥazakah is part of procedural law B 170a; for this reason the laws of ḥazakah are treated by Maimonides in hilkhot To'en ve-Nitan and not in the book on Kinyan), in contrast with the Roman law usucapio of the Twelve Tables, which is a matter of the substantive law whereby ownership is created by virtue of possession for a period of two years. The ḥazakah of Jewish law is somewhat akin to the possession in the Roman praescriptio longi temporis of the end of the second century C.E., according to which possession of property for 10 or 20 years effectively established title, if accompanied by iusta causa. There, however, possession is equally effective even if it transpires that ownership was acquired in a defective manner ab initio, in contrast with the Jewish law, where "he who possesses a field by virtue of a deed which is found to be defective, his hazakah is not established" (Tosef., BB 2:2; BB 32b; cf. TJ, Shevu. 6:2, 37a, where a contrary opinion is expressed).

הסכמות: ר' יצחק שמעלקיש, לבוב, ג תולדות תרס"ד; ר' שלום מרדכי הכהן [שוואדראן], בערזאן, י כסליו תרס"ד; ר' אריה ליבש הלוי איש הורוויץ, סטרי, ז תשרי תרס"ד; ר' שמואל ענגיל, ראדימישא [!],ו שבט תרס"ד; ר' שלמה האלברשטאם, באבאב, ד טבת תרס"ד; ר' משה ב"ר עמרם [גרינוואלד], חוסט, לד למספר בני ישראל [יט אייר] תרס"ה.