Please help! Property laws - abandoned church

I remember reading a story in the newspaper when I was about 10 about a convent that had been abandoned 50 years prior and the property was being taken over by the city. The story had explained that when the occupants initially left the property, the city attempted to take it over, but somebody with some connection to the church was claiming ownership - that the former occupants had gifted it to him - and due to some bylaw pertaining to church property the person had been granted 50 years to provide proof before it was declared abandoned and the city would have rights to it. I have a vague recollection that part of the issue was that the former occupants had not officially declared the property abandoned, and that church property didn't work the same as regular property because the owner was actually "the church" and there was a problem both with who specifically needed to provide the go-ahead for the new guy to officially be declared the owner, and how to contact certain people who were working in third world countries in missionary positions.

I was fascinated by the story, and it's a pivotal plot point in my current WIP. However, I've been trying to research exactly how this would have gone down, and to find some terminology that will lend some credence to the whole thing, which I'm afraid is going to come off as very unrealistic otherwise. I can't find anything at all on the original story (which was just a little throw-away article in a small town paper in the mid 80s) and I have found nothing about anything similar.

Has anyone heard of such a thing? Does it sound completely implausible? Can anyone steer me in the right direction to do some reading on how it would work?