Acquisitive prescription (hiyaza) in Morocco: only on unregistered land

Hiyaza only concerns unregistered land — melkia, customary possession. Registration, which makes ownership enforceable against everyone, closes that door for good.

1. Hiyaza in two lines: possession that can found ownership

Hiyaza is the possession capable of founding an acquisitive prescription: someone who holds and uses a property as if they owned it, for a certain period, may see that holding recognised as a mode of acquiring ownership. It is a classic concept of property law, organised in Morocco by the Real Rights Code (law 39-08, dahir no. 1-11-178 of 22 November 2011).

The underlying logic is old: the law dislikes situations that stay uncertain indefinitely. Someone who occupies a property peacefully and openly, with nobody objecting, eventually — under conditions — sees a factual situation consolidated into a right. But the mechanism has one decisive limit, and that limit is the whole point of this article.

2. What a qualifying possession looks like

Not every occupation amounts to hiyaza. For a possession to be capable of founding an acquisitive prescription, it must show cumulative qualities that property law classically requires:

• Peaceful — exercised without violence or forcible entry.
• Continuous — not interrupted by absences or by someone else retaking possession.
• Public — visible, known, not clandestine.
• Unequivocal — exercised as an owner, not as a tenant, a caretaker or a tolerated occupier.
• For the period set by the regulations in force — prescription presupposes that time has run; the length and its variants come from the texts, to be confirmed with a property lawyer or with your adouls for your specific case.

We deliberately quote no figure for the period: the exact duration and the conditions of its application depend on the texts in force and on how the file is characterised, which is a lawyer's work, not a valuer's. What matters here is the ground on which the mechanism can — or cannot — operate at all.

3. The central rule: hiyaza never runs against a registered property

This is the point every buyer, heir and investor should take away: acquisitive prescription can never run against a registered property and its recorded owner. The holder of a land title does not risk losing it because a third party occupied the property for a long time.

The reason lies in the nature of the land title regime itself, created by the dahir of 12 August 1913 and modernised by law 14-07: registration in the land register kept by the ANCFCC makes ownership enforceable against everyone. The recorded right prevails, and it cannot be extinguished by an occupier's prolonged possession alone. That is one of the major protective effects of registration, set out in our guide titled property vs moulkia.

The consequence is clean: hiyaza concerns unregistered land only — melkia, customary possession, property still governed by an adoular deed alone. On that ground, and only there, possession may under conditions lead to recognition of ownership.

4. Why that boundary changes everything for a buyer

The same logic explains two situations that are often confused. On a registered property, the land title is the sovereign piece of information: occupation by a third party, however old, does not threaten the holder's right — it creates a practical problem of recovering possession, not a risk of losing ownership by prescription. On an unregistered property, by contrast, everything rests on the quality of the possession and of the chain of evidence — and that is where disputes are born.

An adoular moulkia records a possession, but its probative force stops short of a land title, and it remains open to challenge by a third party asserting an earlier right or a competing possession. Buying unregistered land therefore means buying a question of fact as well: who actually possesses, since when, and is it contested?

5. Other tenure statuses: prescription is not a given

The registered/unregistered divide is not the only one to know. Several Moroccan tenure statuses are, by their nature, outside any logic of appropriation through possession:

• Collective (soulaliyate) land. Governed notably by law 62-17 (2019) on administrative supervision of ethnic communities and their property, and on the melkisation framework. These lands belong to the communities and follow a specific regime: a plot is not appropriated by occupying it. See our file on collective land — buying, valuation and risk.
• Habous property. Dedicated to a purpose, with disposal strictly framed. See habous property — status, lease and valuation.
• Maritime public domain. Inalienable and imprescriptible: it can neither be acquired nor prescribed. Private use runs through a temporary occupation permit, precarious and revocable — never through appropriation.

6. What a valuer looks at on unregistered land

Valuing a property exposed to questions of possession never reduces to a figure. Before any value, the valuer characterises the actual tenure status and the context of the holding:

• The status of the property — definitive land title, registration application under way, or an unregistered moulkia; that status alone decides whether the prescription question even arises.
• The chain of adoular deeds — coherence and continuity of successive purchases, partitions and gifts; a missing link weakens the possession relied on.
• Actual occupation — who occupies, in what capacity (owner, tenant, tolerated occupier), since when, and with or without a known challenge.
• Boundaries and neighbours — clear, surveyable boundaries and identified neighbours, or an interlocked configuration that invites contest, as often in the medinas.
• The risk of an objection during registration — anything that could turn an administrative procedure into a contested one.

RICS standards require any material uncertainty over title to be disclosed and, where the doubt is significant, the conclusion to be expressed as a range rather than a single figure. The discount attached to the absence of a title is then built methodically: objectively costed registration expenses, the cost of carrying capital through the procedure, and a risk premium reflecting the quality of the possession and of the chain of evidence.

7. Buying unregistered land: the no-surprises checklist

• Check the status first. Ask whether a land title exists. If it does, hiyaza is off the table and the title prevails. If it does not, you are on the ground of possession.
• Have the adoular chain traced. A property lawyer or your adouls reconstruct the sequence of deeds — the backbone of proof on unregistered land.
• Identify occupiers and neighbours. A third party in occupation, or a neighbour with an old grievance, is a signal to quantify before committing.
• Plan for registration. If you are buying in order to secure the right, cost the procedure, its timetable and its uncertainty from the outset — and use them in the negotiation.
• Have the property valued in its real legal condition. An independent valuation turns status and risk into a defensible figure you can negotiate on.

One caveat worth stating plainly: a private valuation serves to negotiate and decide — set a price, quantify a discount, arbitrate between selling as-is and registering first. Whether a prescription is legally made out is a matter for lawyers, never for the valuer. Our valuations are produced by RICS-certified experts and set out the method, the comparables retained and every adjustment applied. Fees start at 3,500 MAD excl. tax.