Adverse Possession: Emininent domain's evil twin brother?

[uberloz]

Check out the arrogance of this couple in Colorado!

I'm hesitant to just blame this on these wackos being typical Democrats or liberals because this kind of evil ( hopefully ) crosses party lines here.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2007/nov/27/boulders-bitter-land-dispute/

I thought my neighbor's were jerks, but this is way beyond the pale.

This is from the article:

Although they've owned neighboring properties for almost 25 years, the two families went about their separate lives without ever meeting - until last year, when McLean and Stevens filed a lawsuit asking a judge to award them part of the Kirlins' lot.

The case thrust both families into the spotlight last month when the court decided McLean and Stevens are more attached to the land than the Kirlins, based on the long-existing but little-known law of adverse possession. The battle continues with the Kirlins vowing to take the issue to a higher court.

[Zkribbler]

Adverse possession dates way back to Ye Olde Jolly England. It's designed to keep property in productive use.

The adverse use has to be for a long period of time, usually 10 years, 15 in some states, in western states such as California it's 5 years. If you're openly using someone's land for that long without them noticing, then you can bring suit to have the land declared yours.

[uberloz]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Adverse possession dates way back to Ye Olde Jolly England. It's designed to keep property in productive use.

The adverse use has to be for a long period of time, usually 10 years, 15 in some states, in western states such as California it's 5 years. If you're openly using someone's land for that long without them noticing, then you can bring suit to have the land declared yours.

Am I misinterpreting your response?

Are you actually in favor of this legal practice?

[Patroklos]

They called fives, there is no legal way out.

[C0ckney]

adverse possession is a very good and useful legal principle, and as zkribbler rightly says, it helps to keep land in productive use.

in this country, you automatically acquire the rights over land after 12 years of adverse possession, although you may register your interest in the land after 10 years.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by uberloz
Am I misinterpreting your response?

Are you actually in favor of this legal practice?

I haven't really thought about it much. I guess I'm for it.

It's more beneficial for society to make use of land than to not make use of land. The onus on the original landowner is minimal -- just check out your property every 4, 9 or 14 years to see if anyone else is using it.

[uberloz]

Ok, let's say I buy into the whole practice as a way of "keeping land productive" [which I don't by the way, but I will temporarily for the sake of argument ]

How does what this couple in Colorado did constitute "keeping the land productive"?

I mean this wasn't abandoned property being squatted on.

It seems to me as if this couple just wants to increase the size of their lot by annexing some of their neighbors and have been successful for 'whatever' reason.

[ I won't go into the whole possibility of them pulling local governments strings because I have no way of knowing that is true even though it does seem likely. ]

It would be one thing if the annexing couple had built something on that property undisputed by their neighbors but as it was a vacant lot adjacent to both parties that doesn't appear to apply in this case.

McLean and Stevens claimed in their lawsuit that because they had been using one of the Kirlins' two vacant lots to access their backyard and had never been asked to stop, they had become the de facto owners of that land.

I interpret that as some kind of back driveway or such?

Once the original owner expressed their desire to build a fence the property should have been retained by them and not transferred to this other couple.

What am I missing about this situation that makes it disputable?

[Dinner]

The couple who lost the court case honestly didn't notice their neighbor had possession/productive use of the land for a decade? You snooze, you lose.

[Arrian]

Based on the description in the newspaper article, this sounds crappy.

Their neighbors wanted to build a fence (gasp! how horrible). In response they got a restraining order, and then filed suit claiming that, because they had used part of the other people's land "to access their backyard and had never been asked to stop" - thus they should own it. Not at all in the spirit of the law. Bad decision by the judge, which will hopefully be overturned on appeal.

-Arrian

[Whoha]

They filed a lawsuit to prevent the productive use of a vacant lot. How can that possibly be construed/contrived as being supportive of productive use is beyond me.

[Jon Miller]

Umm, that law is suppose to be only if they build something on the land or are using it for cattle or something.

JM

[DinoDoc]

This is the first time I'd heard this principle being used in an American court. Has this happened before?

[snoopy369]

It's certainly not the horrible thing you are making it out to be. Try rereading what actually happened:

Defendant owns a parcel of land A, adjacent to their property B. Plaintiff owns parcel of land C (their house) also adjacent to A. For the last twenty-five years, Plaintiff has used a twenty foot corridor of land about 1/3 of the way into A as an access route to their property C. No complaint has been registered in that time. Now, twenty-five years later, Defendant has chosen to block that access, although Plaintiff relies on it for access to their house and has made improvements that make access to their house otherwise impossible. Plaintiff is suing based on Adverse Possession for the right to that land.

Doesn't sound so bad now, does it? The keys are that:
1. Defendant does not use the property.
2. Plaintiff has made productive use of the property for an extended amount of time (25 years here).
3. Defendant has not objected to that use.

The idea is that you can't just suddenly say "Sorry, you need to stop doing something you've been doing for a really long time now just because I feel like saying so". If you're not using the land anyway, what harm is it doing you; while it does great harm to the ohter party, who often doesn't know they're infringing.

The thing is that clearly in this case this wouldn't have come up if the defendant hadn't suddenly for no obvious reason decided to build a fence to block their access. More than likely they could have come to a resolution that didn't involve giving up title to the land - but the defendand did not choose that route. This is then the only relief the plaintiff has for continued access to their land...

[Arrian]

Oerdin, read the article. The claim is that they used the land to access their backyard (in other words, I'd guess they simply walked through it) and had never been asked to stop - in other words their neighbors were nice... that they should be given the land by judicial fiat.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Snoopy,

I read the article to say that the couple that wanted to put up the fence had decided to finally build their "dream home" on the vacant plot, somethign they had wanted to do for some time.

So now, because they were nice neighbors for 25 years, they're ****ed?

-Arrian