When Property Lies Idle: Why Ownership Must Serve Use

Peter Lee

Property rights are among the most fundamental institutions of a modern economy. They provide certainty, encourage investment and anchor social stability. Yet when ownership becomes detached from use—when land and housing remain idle for years—the very institution designed to protect value can end up destroying it.

This tension is not new. Legal systems have long grappled with the problem of abandoned or neglected property. One of the most controversial, yet revealing, responses is the doctrine of adverse possession. Under it, a non-owner who openly and continuously occupies land for a legally defined period may acquire lawful title, while the absentee owner’s claim expires.

At first glance, this appears perverse. Why should the law reward occupation and penalise ownership? The answer lies in a principle often overlooked in contemporary debates: property rights exist not only to protect claims, but to ensure that assets remain socially and economically functional.

Ownership Without Use Is Not Neutral

Idle land and vacant housing are not harmless. They impose costs—physical decay, lost output, reduced labour mobility and suppressed opportunity. In economies facing slowing growth and demographic pressure, such waste compounds structural stagnation.

In many countries, especially those that have undergone rapid urbanisation or financialisation of real estate, ownership has increasingly become an asset-holding strategy rather than a productive commitment. Properties are retained for speculation, inheritance or political protection, while remaining unused for decades. Legally intact, economically sterile.

Adverse possession emerged precisely to counter this dynamic. Its logic is not to legitimise trespass, but to impose a time limit on neglect. When an owner neither uses nor defends a property for an extended period, the law eventually recognises reality over form.

Territory Versus Institutions

Governments often seek growth through expansion—of territory, infrastructure or headline investment. Yet history suggests that prosperity depends far more on institutional quality than on the scale of assets controlled.

States that struggle to deploy what they already possess gain little by acquiring more. Idle factories, empty flats and abandoned farmland signal not shortage, but misalignment between legal structures and economic needs.

The question, then, is not whether property should be protected—it must be—but whether protection should be unconditional when ownership ceases to perform any economic or social function.

The Global Mismatch: Idle Assets, Idle People

Across advanced and emerging economies alike, a striking contradiction has emerged. Vast quantities of land and housing remain unused, while younger generations face barriers to employment, mobility and asset ownership.

This is not simply a housing problem, nor merely a labour-market one. It is an institutional coordination failure. Assets are locked away by legal certainty; people are locked out by economic insecurity.

Over time, this mismatch erodes confidence in both markets and governance. When property is seen as untouchable regardless of use, it ceases to be viewed as productive capital and becomes a symbol of exclusion.

Rethinking Property Rights—Carefully

Revisiting doctrines such as adverse possession does not mean dismantling property rights. On the contrary, it means reaffirming their purpose.

Clear ownership matters because it enables investment. But investment follows incentives. Where legal systems allow assets to remain idle indefinitely without consequence, they quietly reward non-use.

Limited, carefully designed mechanisms that transfer rights after prolonged abandonment can restore balance. They encourage owners either to use their property or relinquish it to those who will. This is not radical redistribution; it is institutional housekeeping.

Such mechanisms already exist in various forms: vacancy taxes, compulsory purchase, use-it-or-lose-it clauses. Adverse possession represents the most legally distilled version of this logic.

The Deeper Principle

The enduring lesson is simple but uncomfortable: property rights are strongest when they are conditional on responsibility. Ownership is not merely a claim against others; it is a commitment to maintain, use and integrate assets into the wider economy.

Where this balance is lost, societies face stagnation not because they lack resources, but because their institutions prevent resources from moving.

As economies confront slower growth, ageing populations and frustrated younger cohorts, the question is no longer whether reform is risky. It is whether inaction is sustainable.

Rethinking how ownership relates to use may be less controversial than it appears—and far more necessary.