Chazakah

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Chazakah, sometimes pronounced chazokoh (Hebrew חזקה, meaning "strength" or "on the strength of") is a Talmudic law concept. In general, it means the presumption that, until proven otherwise, the legal status of an object (or person) will remain the same as it previously had been.

This concept is relevant to many aspects of Talmudic law, including the rules that:

• Objects whose ownership are disputed will be presume to be in the ownership of the last known owner until proven otherwise.
• A person or object that is in a state of ritual purity or impurity will continue to remain in that state until it can be demontrated that a change has taken place.

The same word is sometimes used to mean a legal presumption in general.

Other meanings are:

• possession, or the taking of possession as one of the formalities of sale
• in particular, the automatic acquisition of ownership following three years of undisturbed possession (equivalent to usucapion in Roman law).