lay claim

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

1. To say 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:

     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.

• put facts on the ground