Individual right of proprietorship was a concept that Archaic law had not yet worked out. Proprietorship was not far removed from possession in accord with the law . The most important form of ownership was in land, but the sources are not clear when they speak of early divisions of territory and its distribution by family. It is not made plain whether this was simple usufruct or true proprietorship. The remnant of an older concept of shared possession of lands can be seen in the frequent decisions to redistribute, those for example by Demonax at Cyrene and by Lycurgus at Sparta.

Many proprietorship regulations were subject to restrictions for the good of public or private interests. Thus a law ascribed to Solon laid down that the occupier of a field with a well must allow the drawing of water from it to irrigate his neighbours' fields as well.

Encroachment on proprietorship could be prosecuted through a dike exagoges. Correspondingly, defence of proprietorship was made through a dike exoules.

Lastly, the question of a special kind as regards the mortgaging of ownership in land is related to Solon's seisachtheia and is susceptible to various interpretations, depending upon the definition of the hektemoroi. Certain people look on the hektemoroi as smallholders in debt who mortgaged their fields and were subsequently obliged to attach themselves to them in a way similar to the helots at Sparta. Certainly the horoi (markers), which Solon in his poems is proud of having removed, should be interpreted as elements indicative of mortgage. But not all students of the subject agree with the above version. For certain of them, the hektemoroi must be seen as landless citizens obliged to provide their labour to the great eupatrid landowners. Those of them who did not manage to pay down the agreed portion of their harvest were regarded as agogimoi, that is, they belonged to the master of the field. Solon liberated all who because of their debts were in a condition of slavery, and at the same time he abolished loans made epi tois somasi (with the body as mortgage). Mortgaging of landed property continued even in the Classical period, but in no case could it now lead to deprivation of personal freedom.