Abandonment

The term abandonment has a multitude of uses, legal and extra-legal.

Abandonment, in law, is the relinquishment or renunciation of an interest, claim, privilege, possession, or right, especially with the intent of never again resuming or reasserting it. Such intentional action may take the form of a discontinuance or a waiver. This broad meaning has a number of applications in different branches of law. In common law jurisdictions, both common law abandonment and statutory abandonment of property may be recognized.

Common law abandonment may be generally defined as "the relinquishment of a right by the owner thereof without any regard to future possession by himself or any other person, and with the intention to foresake or desert the right...." or as "the voluntary relinquishment of a thing by its owner with the intention of terminating his ownership, and without vesting ownership in any other person; the giving up of a thing absolutely, without reference to any particular person or purpose...." By contrast, an example of statutory abandonment (albeit in a common law jurisdiction) is the abandonment by a bankruptcy trustee under 11 U.S.C. § 554. In Scots law, failure to assert a legal right in a way that implies abandonment of that property is called taciturnity.