Ouster - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition ouster

Definition :

Ouster, dispossession.

A wrong or injury that may be sustained in respect of hereditaments, corporeal or incorporeal, carry-ing with it the deprivation of possession; for thereby the wrongdoer gets into the actual occupation of the land or hereditament, and obliges him that has a right to seek his legal remedy in order to gain possession and damage for the injury sustained. Such dispossession may be either of the freehold or of chattels real.

Ouster of the freehold was effected by various methods: 1, abatement; 2, intrusion; 3, disseisin; 4, discontinuance; and 5, deforcement.

Ouster of chattels real consists: 1st, of a motion of possession from estates held by statute, recogni-zance, or elegit, which happens by a species of disseisin or turning out of the legal proprietor before his estate is determined, by raising the sum for which it is given to him in pledge; and 2nd, of a motion of possession from an estate of years, which takes place by a like kind of disseisin, ejection, or turning out of the tenant from the occupation of the land during the continuance of his term, Bl. Com. 167, 198.

For remedies for ouster, see EJECTMENT and FORCIBLE ENTRY.

For ouster, removal of members or officers of a corporation, see Halsb. L.E., officers of a corporation, see Halsb. L.E., sub tit. 'Corporation'; and upon forfeiture of a franchise for a market or fair (ibid.), sub tit. 'Markets and Fairs.'

Ouster does not mean actual driving out of the co-sharer from the property. It will, not be complete unless it is coupled with all other ingredients required to constitute adverse possession. Three elements are necessary for establishing the plea of ouster in the case of co-owner. They are (i) declaration of hostile animus (ii) long and uninterrupted possession of the person pleading ouster and (iii) exercise of right of exclusive ownership openly and to the knowledge of other co-owners, Vidya Devi v. Prem Prakash, AIR 1995 SC 1789 (1794): (1995) 4 SCC 496.