animus domini

Animus domini is the intention to treat a thing as one's own, to the exclusion of all others, including the true owner. Roman law and Savigny required this intention for possession in the full legal sense; a tenant or borrower, who holds for another, had only detention.

Salmond and later writers argued that the necessary mental element is animus possidendi (intention to exclude others), not necessarily the claim to own. In Indian law the idea matters most in adverse possession: the possessor must hold with a hostile intention, asserting title against the owner. Permissive possession, however long, lacks this intention.

Example

The licensee who stayed on in the house could not claim title, because he never held it with animus domini against the owner.

See also

animus possidendi · possession · ownership · adverse possession

Read more in the study notes

• Possession: corpus and animus, kinds and possessory remedies (Jurisprudence)
• Possession: the idea, Roman and English law, and the theories (Legal Concepts)
• Possession in Indian and British courts, and adverse possession (Legal Concepts)