Title to real property held by the State and subject to public trust rights may not be acquired by adverse possession. As used in this section, "public trust rights" means those rights held in trust by the State for the use and benefit of the people of the State in common. They are established by common law as interpreted by the courts of this State. They include, but are not limited to, the right to navigate, swim, hunt, fish, and enjoy all recreational activities in the watercourses of the State and the right to freely use and enjoy the State's ocean and estuarine beaches and public access to the beaches.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-45.1
No adverse possession of property subject to public trust rights
Applied in 12 court decisions — leading case 174 N.C. App. 30 - Fabrikant v. Currituck County (2005)
Most recently applied in North Carolina ex rel. North Carolina Department of Administration v. Alcoa Power Generating, Inc. (April 2017)
1985, c. 277, s. 1.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: North Carolina General Assembly. Reproduced from public-domain North Carolina statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.