Considering the problem of evidencing property rights on real estate, it still happens quite often in the practice that the factual situation is not aligned with the legal situation. We especially notice such a problem in villages where acquirers did not file for the registration of their ownership after the contracts were concluded, or other legal affairs executed, which would lead to a situation where the registered owner of some land is a person whom the actual owners do not even know. Given that the non-registered owner is not able to prove the past of the predecessor, he has the option of filing a lawsuit to establish ownership and ultimately filing a request for registration of ownership, based on a court decision. It is precisely for this reason that we consider usucaption or acquisitive prescription as one of the more important original ways of acquiring ownership, and in general we can define the institute as the acquisition of ownership rights based on the possession of things for a period determined by law, under the condition that certain prerequisites are fulfilled. They, as the institute itself, are rooted in Roman law. The very importance of the usucapio stems from the fact that its first regulation was recorded as early as the time of The Laws of the Twelve Tables (451 - 450 BC) when the foundations for the further development of the institute were laid. With time, because of the finished occupation of available land and the need to protect owners, there were introduced some limitations, e.g. the prohibition to usucapt stolen goods (res furtivae), while in the end, it lead to the definition of further prerequisites for the usucapio: iustus titulus (just or valid title) and bona fides (good faith). Besides that, as the usucapio was possible on the land in Italy, by the end of the classical period there were added two more similar institutes for the possessors of provincial land: longi temporis praescriptio and longissimi temporis praescriptio. With Justinian's ascent to power, there were significant changes in law, primarily with regard to the abolition of differences between civil and praetorian law as well as to the status of lands, and the fusion of different forms of usucaption into the two: ordinary and extraordinary. He introduced ordinary usucaption by combining the institutes usucapio and longi temporis praescriptio, and extraordinary usucaption based on the model of longissimi temporis praescriptio but with an extended effect. Elaborating the development of acquisitive prescription further on in the contemporary Croatian law, it can concluded that the Justinian's regulation, relying on the earlier sources considering the prerequisites, forms the basis of the present regulation of the said institute. Throughout the work, special attention was paid to the precondition of good faith (bona fides), which is an essential precondition for acquiring ownership by acquisitive prescription, as without the existence of honesty, it is not possible to acquire ownership either by ordinary or extraordinary usucaption. For the fuller understanding of the honesty of possession, it has been pointed in this thesis on its use and comprehension in the judicial practice and how it exactly manifests itself in certain cases. Precisely because of the above, the paper highlights examples of Croatian court decisions, as well as the examples of cases that appeared in the Roman era which allow for drawing the conclusions on the continuity of this prerequisite in the Roman legal tradition up today.