No action shall be commenced in any case for the recovery of real property or for any interest therein against a person in possession under claim of title by virtue of a written instrument unless the person claiming, his ancestor or grantor, was actually in the possession of the same or a part thereof within forty years from the commencement of such action. And the possession of a defendant, sole or connected, pursuant to the provisions of this section shall be deemed valid against the world after the lapse of such a period.
S.C. Code Ann. § 15-3-380
Effect of forty-year lapse
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case All Saints Parish v. Protestant Episcopal Church in Diocese (2004)
Most recently applied in Estate of Tenney v. South Carolina Department of Health & Environmental Control (April 2011)
1962 Code SECTION 10-129; 1952 Code SECTION 10-129; 1942 Code SECTION 385; 1932 Code SECTION 385; Civ
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: South Carolina Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Carolina statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.