"Alexander Pensky" wrote in message
...
paghat wrote:

Of course if the witch was a human being she would have just left the
damn road alone. But the law does not protect one from a**holes, and
the witch was within her legal rights.


You make some very good points. As for the last statement I would just
suggest that you consider tempering your judgment, keeping in mind that we
don't necessarily know the entire story. There could be any number of
untold reasons that prompted the woman to put up a fence. In the earlier
thread on this subject I was called a number of unkind things simply because
I believe that when you sign an agreement to abide by the covenants in your
deed that you will keep your word. Apparently that makes be a racist bitch.

The neighbors at some point put a huge, orange steel fence post on the corner of
their property which just happens to be 1/4 of the way onto the entrance off the
private drive and into the parking area of my mother. Basically, 60 years ago when
my parents started building the house they started "cutting the corner" between two
big trees along a tree row. the big trees are now gone, but the entrance still cuts
the corner. anybody coming up our drive would start to turn into the house and would
hit the metal stake. We removed the stake after contacting a lawyer and taking a
picture. But when they filed suit, my mother counter sued for adverse possession of
the corner so they could put up the post.
No, my mother didnt lose the land to adverse possession, yes she got adverse
possession of the corner. There was another issue.
They were using the open part of my mothers drive as an access road to the back of
their property, including big trucks bringing in construction materials and moving
their boat etc to the back of their property without my mothers permission. The
neighbor's daughter saw the construction trucks using it and reamed em out (in spring
the wet ground causes the asphalt to collapse/rut under heavy trucks). At one point
I tried to negotiate with them saying we'd leave the open part open if they quit
insisting they owned the strip of land, they said no. Now the city doesnt like
fences. It recommends putting up a row of trees and/or bushes. We didnt want the
hassle of cutting bushes back so we planted a row of trees expecting we could remove
the fence when they got a little bigger. Their NEW lawyer needing something to hang
this suit on, so he claimed the trees were a "nuisance fence" and when they lost the
judge tossed em a sop by ordering us to cut the trees down.
#2 it isnt that they WILL lose the land, it is that when they go to do something on
their own land somebody will THINK they own it and sue them and some asshole judge
wont throw the case out and make them brought the suit pay all the costs.
Well... my mother claimed adverse possession of the corner and won. So I guess use
for a significant period of time does lead to ownership. Ingrid

Alexander Pensky wrote:
#1 It cost $5000 and was not instantly thrown out, but did your mother
actually lose the case? Did she have to relinquish the land?

#2 For every landowner who experiences the nightmare your mother did,
there are 100 more who hear about it and are convinced they too will
lose their land simply because their neighbor has a habit of mowing a 2
foot strip on the wrong side of the lot line.

In the case of lot line encroachments... all you have to do to protect
against adverse possession is to grant explicit permission for the
neighbor to encroach. If you've done a survey and neighbor's fence is
on your land, but you don't mind and don't need it removed, then get a
survey copy showing lot lines & encroaching fence, add a statement
granting neighbor permission to have a fence there, sign it and get
neighbor to sign it.

Of course the neighbor can still take you to court if they don't agree
with the survey and think there is no encroachment. But the document
will prevent them from successfully claiming adverse possession.

It's kind of like common-law marriage. The court can't rule that two
people are in a common-law marriage, against their will. Common-law
marriage exists only when the spouses BOTH claim they are married and
nobody disagrees with them. Likewise -- you can only claim land by
adverse possession if you state that you've taken over the land as yours
for 20 years, and *nobody disagrees with you* including the current
owner if the owner can be located.

- Alex




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