In the US, adverse possession is a takings by a third party, not the government. And it’s not permitted when a land is unoccupied since one of the central tenets of adverse possession is open and notorious occupation. And, as you know based on your prior replies, adverse possession has a time component. The GP’s post is about merely leaving a property unoccupied. They don’t list a timeframe but we can pretty easily assume that if one exists in their mind it is less than the >5 years required for adverse possession based on the context.

I am not a commonwealth lawyer, but my understanding is that they have a similar modern rule in the UK and other commonwealth countries. I am not a continental lawyer, but my understanding is that civil law is similar with respect to government takings.

I will give you credit here because you may have interpreted the GP’s statement of “or forfeit the property” to mean generally lose possession of the property (including to a third party) rather than in the context of the prior sentence that references “the state allowing.” So, some backwards ancient legal principles that have been rejected or severely limited in modern times MIGHT support the contention that a third party can take someone’s land due to it being unoccupied and no modern legal principles support the contention that the government can make someone forfeit their land to the state merely for it being unoccupied.

The answer to my question (Does/should the government have the right to make you surrender that building without compensation (because that’s what forfeit means) simply due to it being unoccupied? Why?) is then “Maybe to someone that is occupying the unoccupied building (however that works) but not to the government.” Got it.

And it’s clear we both know that I have been talking about GOVERNMENT takings (“The government should tell property owners that they are required to keep their property occupied otherwise the government should seize their property?”).