Objective Acts

"Likewise, in Tavares, 814 A.2d at 351, with regard to “establishing hostility and possession under a claim of right,” we explained that “the pertinent inquiry centers on the claimants’ objective manifestations of adverse use rather than on the claimants’ knowledge that they lacked colorable legal title.” In that case, the adverse-possession claimant surveyed his land and discovered “that he did not hold title to the parcels in question.” Id. at 350. After such enlightenment, however, the claimant objectively manifested his claim of ownership to the parcels by “posting no-trespass signs, constructing stone walls, improving drainage, and wood cutting.” Id. at 352. This Court explained that simply having knowledge that he was not the title owner of the parcels was not enough to destroy his claim of right given his objective, adverse manifestations otherwise. Id. at 351-52. In fact, we went so far as to state that “even when claimants know that they are nothing more than black-hearted trespassers, they can still adversely possess the property in question under a claim of right to do so if they use it openly, notoriously, and in a manner that is adverse to the true owner’s rights for the requisite ten-year period.” Tavares, 814 A.2d at 351. This statement is legally correct considering that adverse possession does not require the claimant to make “a good faith mistake that he or she had legal title to the land.” 16 Powell on Real Property § 91.05[2] at 91-23; see 5 Restatement of the Law Property: Servitudes § 458, cmt. d at 2927 (1944) (“[I]t is not necessary in order that a use be adverse that it be made either in the belief or under a claim that it is legally justified.”). However, to the extent that Tavares’s reference to “black-hearted trespassers” suggests that this Court endorses an invade-and-conquer mentality in modern property law, we dutifully excise that sentiment from our jurisprudence."