Whenever it shall appear that the occupant, or those under whom he claims, entered into the possession of premises under claim of title, exclusive of any other right, founding such claim upon a written instrument as being a conveyance of the premises in question, or upon the decree or judgment of a competent court, and that there has been a continued occupation and possession of the premises included in such instrument, decree, or judgment, or of some part of such premises under such claim for twenty years, the premises so included shall be deemed to have been held adversely; except that where the premises so included consist of a tract divided into lots the possession of one lot shall not be deemed a possession of any other lot of the same tract.
S.D. Codified Laws § 15-3-10
Twenty years' possession under written instrument or judgment deemed adverse possession--Tract divided into lots
Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case Lewis v. Moorhead (1994)
Most recently applied in Healy Ranch v. Mines (August 2022)
Source: SDC 1939 & Supp 1960, § 33.0221.
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 Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.