People use “property dispute” and “title dispute” as though they were the same thing. They overlap, but the second is narrower and more precise, and knowing which one you have tells you what you will have to prove.
Title is the legal foundation of a claim to property: the set of documents and facts that show how the right you assert came to you, and from whom. A dispute about title is therefore a dispute about that foundation — whether the deed you rely on was executed by a person who had the right to execute it, whether it was validly made and registered, and whether the chain leading back from it holds together.
A dispute about possession is a different question. It asks who is physically in occupation and whether they are entitled to remain, and it can be decided in favour of a person who is not the owner at all. A dispute about extent — a boundary, a passage, a few feet of a courtyard — assumes both sides have title and argues about where it stops. A dispute about share assumes joint ownership and argues about proportion.
In practice a title dispute is fought on documents made long before the quarrel began. The deed and the deeds before it. Mutation records and municipal assessment records. Tax and utility receipts, which show who has been treated as the owner over time. The sanctioned plan. Where the land was ever tenanted, held under an estate or subject to a settlement, the older records of right. Where anyone acted through an attorney, the instrument of power itself, and whether what was done fell inside it.
Two things follow. First, the earliest useful step is almost always a search — reading the chain of title against the public records — rather than filing anything. A search either confirms the foundation or shows exactly which link is weak, and both answers are worth having before a suit. Second, dates matter as much as documents: a right that was denied years ago may no longer be enforceable, and the day on which a demand was refused or possession was disturbed can decide the matter before the deeds are ever read.
This note describes the general position only. Whether a particular set of papers establishes title depends entirely on those papers, and nothing here should be taken as advice on any specific matter.