A curious case...

My first post here and I wonder if anyone here might be able to shed some light.

This may come across like the script from a movie, but here goes.

First, a little back story.

I want to keep things as anonymous as possible as well... so some of the details have been edited slightly.

My grandparents moved from their home in a small town in Andalucia, along with their children, to one of the big cities in Andalucia, This was back in the late 40s early 50s.

Unbeknown to me, or my siblings and even to my mother and her brothers and sisters it seems her grandfather owned a lot of land and property surrounding this small town. And we're talking a lot.

My grandparents, however, lived in near poverty all their life and never intimated that they were entitled to all this land and assets.

To cut a long story short, some cousins have discovered the existence of this land and property. It seems that a large number of nota simples exist that bear my great grandfather's name and also some are in my grandmother's name.

Great, you might think, except that people are now living in these properties and are working the land. Some of the houses may even have passed through a number of hands and in many cases been torn down and rebuilt over the years

From what little I have read, I understand that the law of adverse possession applies i.n Spain, as it does in the UK and that after occupying land or property for so many years it automatically passes to the occupier, regardless of the name on the nota simple.

Could anyone shed some light on a situation like this? If adverse possession does exist in law in Spain, I don't understand why my cousins are claiming that they are entitled to all this land and property and that it should be handed back. My family left the town and all their assets more than 60 years ago and have never been back.

As to why such wealth would have been simply abandoned,I'm pretty sure that will remain an eternal mystery.