[4][5] Res nec manicipi could be transferred by traditio (delivery) or in iure cessio.
If res mancipi were transferred by traditio, full ownership would not pass and the recipient would become a bonitary owner.
It required five elements:[8] This largely ameliorated the problems experienced by conveyance as a means of establishing ownership, but could still yield harsh results.
Such a situation would only arise where the claimant's possession of the property had been interrupted before the period required to usucape it had elapsed.
Title by usucaption to houses, cisterns, trenches, vaults, dovecots, bath-houses, olive-presses, irrigated fields, and slaves, and aught that brings constant gain, is secured by occupation during three completed years; title by usucaption to unirrigated fields [is secured by occupation during] three years and they need not be completed.
[11] After three years of occupancy the squatter cannot be evicted from the property, unless the original owner can show proof or bring witnesses who testify to the effect that the property is still vested in his name, and that no transaction, conveyance or sale was made between him and the squatter, even though he held it for three years or more, in which case the squatter is forcibly evicted from the property and the court replevins the estate to its rightful owner.
[13][14] The protest must be made before at least two competent witnesses and submitted in a court of law against another's wrongful occupation of his property within the three-year allotted period, in which case the squatter's assumed right to the said property is automatically canceled, unless he can provide proof of purchase.
[15] The language of protestation by the rightful owner is such, or to the effect of such: "So-and-so, who is making use of my courtyard or my field, is a thief.