lay claim

lay claim (third-person singular simple present lays claim, present participle laying claim, simple past and past participle laid claim)

1. (usually with to) To state that something belongs to oneself.

   Synonym: stake a claim

   Spencer University lays claim to the recently published discovery.

   • 2013 January 3, Luke Harding, Uki Goni, The Guardian‎^[1]:

     Argentina also lays claim to what is now Queen Elizabeth Land, as well as to other South Atlantic dependencies including South Georgia and the uninhabited South Sandwich Islands.

   • 2024 May 4, Melanie Gerlies, “New claimant to €35 mn Klimt emerges”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 18:

     Just ahead of the auction, though, a potential heir from outside the family, laid claim on the work, according to Austria's Der Standard newspaper.

• put facts on the ground