Muwatta Imam Malik (Riwayat Yahya)

Imam Malik, may Allah have mercy on him, said that if a person buys land and remains in possession of it for a period, and afterwards another person proves his right in that land, then he will be entitled to pre-emption (shuf‘a), and whatever benefit has been derived from the land will belong to the buyer up to the date his right was established, because the buyer was the guarantor of that land if it had been destroyed or its trees had perished. If a long time has passed, or the witnesses have died, or the seller and buyer have died, or they are alive but have forgotten the sale due to the passage of much time, then in this case the person will get his right but will not be entitled to claim pre-emption. If not much time has passed and it becomes known to the person that the seller deliberately concealed the sale in order to invalidate the pre-emption, then the person may pay the price of the original land and the value of whatever has increased in it, and take the pre-emption.