A landowner may believe that a survey of his or her property may be proof of ownership, and acting upon this belief attempt to protect his or her rights from adjoining landowners who they believe may be trespassing. They confront their neighbor, demanding the removal of the structure that constitutes the perceived trespass, but are refused. Believing themselves to be in the right, they resort to self-help, removing the encroaching improvement, sometimes minimal, sometimes substantial.

What the landowner may not realize is that the land shown on their survey may not accurately reflect the extent of their ownership because of an earlier adverse possession. An adjoining land owner who is able to prove that the possession of their neighbor's property is (1) hostile and under a claim of right; (2) actual; (3) open and notorious; (4) exclusive, and (5) continuous for the required period of at least ten years, and who can demonstrate that the land has been usually cultivated or improved, or has been protected by a substantial enclosure, can establish title in themselves as to that property. As a result of the adverse possession, the record owner is divested of their ownership and now stands in the position of the trespasser as to any portion of their property adversely possessed by their neighbor.