§ 871.1.Good Faith Improver Defined

This section supplies the label the rest of the chapter builds around. A "good faith improver" is a person who makes an improvement to land in good faith, under the erroneous belief -- stemming from a mistake of law or fact -- that they own the land. The definition also reaches a successor in interest of that original improver, so the protection doesn't disappear if the improved property later changes hands.

Good faith and honest mistake are the operative concepts here. Someone who builds knowing full well the land belongs to another person doesn't qualify; this chapter exists for the person who truly, if wrongly, believed the land was theirs when they put up a structure or made some other improvement on it.