Well I’m not arguing the law, it is what it is, the idea that the government is doing this because it’s any of their damn business what you do with the property. If you want to own property and not make it productive that’s your business. At least it should be. This idea that the government can say we don’t think you are using your property the way it should be used so we’re going to let somebody else have it is basically communism.
You have to not use the property for a long time. You have to not bother checking on it and seeing that somebody else is using it. In the modern context, you have to not pay the property tax for it - for years and years. You have to take no action to evict somebody else who is on the property and using it.
What it amounts to is you basically have to abandon the property. Governments adopt policies like this to “quiet title” so that they don’t have a situation in which people suddenly appear and say “hey this dead from 1842 shows this property really belonged to my ancestor and therefore it should be mine”. If they allowed that, it would discourage investment in property but doing things like putting houses or buildings on that property. Imagine if the various Indian tribes could go to the court and legally dispossess tens of millions of homeowners of their homes.....