'ownerless' land

[Ravima]

I was looking at a site recently and spoke tothe farmer regarding another field near his, which looked very overgrown. i asked who was the owner and he told me that there was no owner - the field was oenerless and not used by anyone for years.

can this be so and even more importabtly, can someone become the owner and even more importantly - how?

 

[extopia]

It could be commonage, owned by the state, in which case it's not ownerless, although the farmer might think it amounts to the same thing!

Or else it could be land with disputed title, or no title. I'd say the farmer knows more about the history of the land than he's letting on to you.