Title is a legal term for a bundle of rights in a piece of property in which a party may own either a legal interest or an equitable interest The rights in the bundle may be separated and held by different parties. It may also refer to a formal document that serves as evidence of ownership. Conveyance of the document may be required in order to transfer ownership in the property to another person. Title is distinct from possession, a right that often accompanies ownership but is not necessarily sufficient to prove it. In many cases, both possession and title may be transferred independently of each other.

Possession is the actual holding of a thing, whether or not one has any right to do so. The right of possession is the legitimacy of possession (with or without actual possession), the evidence for which is such that the law will uphold it unless a better claim is proven. The right of property is that right which, if all relevant facts were known (and allowed), would defeat all other claims. Each of these may be in a different person.

For example, suppose A steals from B, what B had previously bought in good faith from C, which C had earlier stolen from D, which had been an heirloom of D's family for generations, but had originally been stolen centuries earlier (though this fact is now forgotten by all) from E. Here A has the possession, B has an apparent right of possession (as evidenced by the purchase), D has the absolute right of possession (being the best claim that can be proven), and the heirs of E, if they knew it, have the right of property, which they cannot prove. Good title consists in uniting these three (possession, right of possession, and right of property) in the same person(s).

A simpler example is when someone purchases an automobile and finances it. The party "buying" the automobile has possession and is the "registered owner." The bank or finance company has legal ownership and is listed as the "lienholder." In the event the registered owner fails to make payments to the lienholder, the lienholder has the right to repossess the automobile, presumably to sell it. The registered owner has possession and right of possession, while the lienholder retains right of property.

Now, if the financed automobile referenced above was purchased by a company and was being loaned out by a car rental organization, the person who rented the vehicle would have possession; the rental company would be the registered owner and have right of possession, while again, the lienholder would have right of property.

The extinguishing of ancient, forgotten, or unasserted claims, such as E's in the example above, was the original purpose of statutes of limitations. Otherwise, title to property would always be uncertain.

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