A Boulder couple lost 25% of their property after a neighbor used the legal principle of “adverse possession” to west control of it. For 25 years, Richard McClean and Edith Stevens used part of a vacant lot owned by their neighbor, the Kirlins. They extended their rock garden into it, held parties, and stacked wood upon it. Recently they filed to suit to take control of the land. The judge ruled that since the Kirlins hadn’t contested the Stevens use before, they were less attached to the property, and awarded the claim to the litigants. Naturally, the case has caused an uproar in the Boulder community who are delighted to have discovered a land grabber within their midst. The Kirlins plan to appeal, and the Boulderites plan to hold protest picnics among the lots scrabbly grass and weeds.
Stevens: Loser in property case ‘disgruntled’ [Daily Camera]
More From Consumerist
-
Homeowner Has To Share House With Squatter Because Police Can’t Do Anything
-
Family Suing Electrical Substation Near Their Home Because High-Voltage Shocks Aren't Pleasant
-
L.A. Sues U.S. Bank For Letting Foreclosures Fall Into Disrepair
-
Wells Fargo Sends Crew To Foreclose On Home That Doesn’t Even Have A Mortgage, Shrugs
-
Leatherman Can’t Repair Tool Under 25-Year Warranty, Replaces It Instead
@Raanne: Wouldn’t it be fair to at least have to compensate them for the land you have taken? If you were negligent enough to build a structure on someone else’s land, I think you should have to pay. You have reduced the size of their land. You shouldn’t be able to just say, “Oops, oh well, mine now.” If you were truly misinformed, by a city surveyor for example, there are avenues available by which you could pursue compensation for the mistake. The property owner should be the one with the rights, since they own the land.
@Raanne:
In a case like that, I’d say at minimum, I should have to pay the owner of the property fair market value for the 1 foot of property I’d be taking from him. He shouldn’t have to simply give it to me because he didn’t notice that it was 1 foot over the property line.
@mysticone:
if you didn’t have the money, should he be allowed to tear down the 1′ of garage on his property?
and taxes shouldn’t lay claim to anything – who ever owns the land pays teh taxes. when you gain possession of the land, you start paying the taxes on the land.
If there were 25 years of land improvement involved, it sounds pretty Boulder-ish. But I’m willing to put up with the occasional flash of Boulder weirdness if it means Boulder will stop RMCC from expanding to the size of Wal-Marts in a rural zones and keep up its open-space policies.
@Raanne: Yep.
Would you think it was fair if I built an extension of my house onto your front yard, and then said it was mine?
I’ve seen this situation personally with the addition of personal multi-family feuds that date back decades …
My GF’s parents have a lake house on a large and popular lake in Maine. The area is a former hunting lodge and resort dating back to the 1800s which was split into a series of on-water and away-from-water lots sometime in the 1900′s.
All of the off-water lots have deeds that clearly state that they have water access and the old paperwork shows where these routes are.
The problem is that the “on paper” routes differ from the paths people have been using for the past 40+ years. Technically many of these access paths go through other homeowner’s property.
One neighbor with a lawyer daughter decided to try to get cute and filed quit-claim paperwork and made other aggressive attempts to enlarge their lot.
Neighbors had to shell out expensive money to hire surveyers and lawyers themselves and it generated a lot of ill-will in a small and gossipy community.
The rub? Not only did the land-grabbing neighbors get proven wrong by deed lookups and surveyors but one of the neighbors who was most ill-treated was suprised to learn that the land-grabbing folk had a septic system and leach field that extended more than 15 feet into his property.
This poor old guy who had to shell out hard earned dollars to survey and protect his home had the pleasant duty of delivering a certified letter to the neighbors asking them to kindly relocate their expensive septic and leach field before year end
@Raanne:
That’s a separate issue. Either way, the owner of said infringed property would be owed money, and the owner of said infringing property would be required to pay it, have a lien placed against their property, etc. This isn’t particularly different from any other issue where the court orders one person to pay a sum to another.
As far as paying taxes goes, the fact that the owner of the property has purchased their property and continues to pay taxes on the property should be more than enough proof that they’re the rightful owners of that property. They’re paying what’s legally required of them to maintain their ownership, so, it should be maintained.
Don’t the Kirlins understand how land disputes are supposed to be settled in the West? Mr. Kirlin should have come out with his shotgun and shot his neighbors. As he did so he should have yelled, get offa my land, you dirty polecat!!
If anyone wants a fairly good explanation of Adverse Possession as applied in Colorado, see if you can find Schuler v. Oldervik, 143 P.3d 1197 using Google, or whatever you might have access to. It breaks it down element by element in a case regarding a driveway.
did you guys know that subsurface mineral rights take priority over surface property rights?
These people and the presiding judge make me sick.
It’s sad how this “neighbor” turned on their friend who allowed them to use their land. One good deed deserves a lawsuit? I agree with whoever said that they should be responsible for all of the past taxes on the property during the past 25 years. What a couple of assholes. I hope it was worth it to them. I hope someone sues them and takes something of theirs they worked hard for to purchase and pay for. They are a prime example of what is wrong with the entitled jerks of this country who think that the world owes them a favor. They should at least have to pay them for the value of the property, otherwise this is a basic form of “legal” theft.
@Pylon83:
It’s not trespassing if you don’t notify the offending party.
As a lawyer, these are fascinating reactions. Adverse possession is old and very well-established property law. This isn’t really legal trickery. Anyone who works with real estate would know about it, at the very least, and the risk of adverse possession is one reason why people usually get a survey before buying or selling property.
As some have pointed out, of course, that doesn’t mean a person is wise to adversely possess another’s land.
To those planning a hostile takeover of Yosemite, you cannot adversely possess public land.
Can I adversely possess part of my employer’s land – namely the small “plot” where my ass has been sitting in front of a computer, after 25 years?
@Sam Glover:
While it would make sense to have this explored when buying or selling land, is the average person expected to know about adverse possession (and their risk for having their property taken from them under these laws) when they’re not in the process of buying or selling property?
@WV.Hillbilly:
That is wholly incorrect. Going onto the land of another without permission is trespassing regardless of notice. The landowner may not chose to prosecute, but the simple act of going onto the land of another without permission is trespassing. “No Trespassing” signs are simply a way to let people know that have come upon the land of another who will not tolerate even a small trespass. Basically, a “No Trespassing” sign is saying “Don’t break the law”. A “No Murdering” sign would accomplish the same thing. It’s illegal whether there is a sign or not.
Here’s the google map of the property in question… [tinyurl.com]
You can see that this isn’t about a rock garden and a place to stack wood. It’s about preventing them from building a house and blocking their view. While I think the owner should be able to notice and permit the neighbors for using their land, I think it is bad grapes and bad neighbors to prevent them from building a home on their land at this point. This story is a good education for all of us in property rights!
Use it or lose it.
Cheap? assholish? Yes yes. But if you are going to let someone come into your yard and take your stuff and not say anything. Tough cookies.
wow. just wow.
If I lived in Boulder, I would egg these people’s house for a year…
… ok, not really, but I would make sure that Ms. Levy didn’t get reelected.
Wait a minute! So… if i park my car in my neighbors driveway for years & they dont complain about it…. then I can legally take that part of their property away from them if they never actively used it? This is absurd & outrageous!
Now if the owners of this land owed tons of backtaxes, a blight to the neighborhood and was just a nusiance….. then MAYYYYYYYYBE I could see some almost valid reasons for forfeiture of the property to someone who could afford to improve upon it.
Christ! I think maybe I should squat on a bunch of prime, but disused land & then claim rightfull ownership!
After reading the article…. I have to suspect that because he was the former mayor & a district judge for the city…. the decision was influenced by His cronies in the city’s judicial & government system.
These kinds of stories truely disturb me.
I guess good deeds really DO never go unpunished!
Lesson…. be an asshole to your neighbor & never allow them to use your property for anything! I guess good fences often do make good neighbors! Too bad they didnt have it fenced off.
you know…. My parents own 60 acres of land for their horsefarm & have used a 10 acre fenced off area of the neighbors for 20+years as grazing land (its fenced off so that only my parents have access). Either it was a surveying error or a verbal agreement or not a verbal agreement. Its been so long that I am sure noone knows the truth. But it seems that under the law my parents can legally claim ownership? Note: a while back I noticed orange surveyer’s tape all over the trees on this part of the land, but the neighbors havnt said anything to anyone. Also… i noticed the property lines descrepancy years ago while I was checking out plattmaps of the area, brought it to my parents’ attention & they brushed it off & didnt want to talk about it…. maybe they are preparing for a takeover? lol!
@dlynch:
Who are you, DLYNCH, the plaintif? I’m glad I don’t live next to you. And who’s to say what the highest and best use is? That’s a pretty slipery slope. It’s not a huge leap to say that people and their talents, like land is partially a public resource, and should be put to their highest and best use as well, even if it’t not what the person wants. It seems you’re aquainted with what the law says on this matter, but I’d encourage you to think about deeper implications of what’s going on here, and whether, independantly of the law, it is a good or bad thing.
@Promethean:
Nothing in the law says you have to actually “put it to use”, but you simply have to protect it by excluding others. If you don’t notice that someone else is using your land for over 18yrs, it’s likely that you are not only failing to use it, but also failing to protect it and exclude all others (a right of a property owner). You can let the land sit vacant and not touch it for 100 years as long as you don’t ignore the fact that other people are using it without your permission.
this one really ticks me off…..if it’s my land for 100 yrs,and i’m paying taxes on it, what half assed law give some clown the right to take it over????
i would be involved in a little “land rage”……..
@Pylon83:
I think we should distinguish between “don’t notice” and “didn’t mind”. Prior to reading this, I certainly would never have thought to formally and in writing grant permission for something like this. We don’t know the exact context of this continued use, but it sounds like these people were in a similar situation. What bothers me about this case most is that the land-grab didn’t happen until after the owners were about to build a house there.
If more of you read more on the informations provided about this case, it would become apparent that the people who ‘claimed’ to have used the land for so long can’t actually provide an photo evidence of the so called parties they have held on the land for what? 18 years? There was also a claim that the supposed walking path did not seems like it was there for too long. ‘Sides, any decent person, who knows they’d have a use for a piece of land should always approach another to purchase it, not squat until it becomes theirs. And for those that say people who own land should know about this law and have ended it long ago with a permission to use the land or what not, first of all you don’t know if the couple who claimed to have used the land has actually used it in a very open manner, and second of all, I am sure you don’t know all the laws relating to all the items you own either. Judging from a lot of the responses to this article, I guess my cynical belief that more people are morally unjust than not isn’t so cynical after all.
@humphrmi: Untrue. The principal applies to trademarks, but not to copyrights.
Nothing new here. Adverse possession has been around for al ong time and in terms of quieting title makes a lot of sense. Otherwise, things just get messy.
Should they charge back-rent for the property instead? This is the property owners own-fault for not taking care of this earlier.
That and for not hiring a good lawyer. They could have argued, perhaps successfully, that they had given consent to this use early on and that it was at no point violating their right – they just felt no need to boot them off.
Adverse possesion is not exactly a new idea, it is quite old and has a valid and useful purpose, that being to prevent unused property from falling into decay by both rewarding someone else who takes care of sans assistance and/or approval of the real owner and by forcing people to actually utelize their property.
That being said the Steven’s were a bit heavy handed. While their action may or may not have been justified, it’s not going to earn them much goodwill. Quite the opposite actually their neighbors will hate them and the Stevens will probably have to move because they picked one hell of a town to persue this action in. They should expect protesters and other things aimed at making their lives a living hell and driving them out of town.
People here who are moaning about how people don’t have property rights and such anymore have no ground to stand on with the idea of Adverse Possesion. It just makes sure that property is actually utelized and not just left to decay.
@Brad2723: It’s been around forever. Get educated before you start whining.
They still own the damned land. Stuff like this would cause gun fire 200 years ago. Now it causes lawyers to get happy.
@DeeJayQueue: I totally agree about the commenters on the originating site. It’s obvious that like so many people, they take limited evidence (one newspaper account), react emotionally to it, and allow their minds to snap shut, never to be swayed from their initial conclusion. They don’t try to ascertain facts or understand the legal issues and their implications. It’s much easier to come up with conspiracy theories and condemn their opponents as evil.
We can know the legality and still balk at the ethics.
@medic78: If the original owners permitted the use of the land by the neighbors, meaning they noted it and made it clear to adverse possessors that they knew of the use and permitted it, then adverse possession almost immediately dies. Adverse possession has a requirement built into the term – “adverse.” The adverse possessor needs to possess the land against the will of the former owner.
@JustRunTheDamnBallBillick.: One, your parents gave permission. Two, they have a valid contract (They get free strawberries for free use of the land)
@mysticone: May not be nice, but Adverse Possession is a well recognized legal way of getting land. If the original owners couldn’t be responsible for at least putting up a token fence or even a piece of string in all that time, they earned their loss.
@Consumer-X:
You’re being a twit. The land-owners allowed the use of the land because they weren’t using it. That’s not excuse for land theft.
My family owns land that we never set foot on, because it is surrounded by and covered with trees. Someone could build a house there and we’d never know it. The point is that we *like* having untouched wooded land.
This law was designed implicitly to handle cases where lot lines were indistinct, and where one party had built an immovable structure over the line. Where the land-line is clear and the use is temporary (use that would not cause adversity were the landowner to assert their rights and call for a survey), these laws do not apply.
All property laws require a person to do is exert the barest minimum of vigilance in protecting their property rights. And the person is given a huge amount of time in which to do so–20 years in most states. All that person has to do is exert some basic control over their property and it stops the adverse possession clock.
We may have certain rights in this country but a lot of them require you to assert them or waive them. For example, if you don’t assert your right to an attorney in a criminal trial in a timely manner, you are deemed to waive it. In property law, if you don’t assert your right to your property at some point, it might be waived through adverse possession as well.
“Keep your hedges trimmed, but don’t cut them down.”
-Benjamin Franklin
From the Daily Camera site :
“In Colorado, the law requires a person to essentially trespass unchallenged on another person’s land for 18 years and says it must be done in a “hostile” and “uninterrupted” manner – among other things – before adverse possession can be claimed.
State Rep. Rob Witwer, R-Evergreen, said he plans to draft a bill to be introduced at the start of the 2008 legislative session in January that would change the “hostile” requirement to a “good-faith” provision that would require people claiming adverse possession to generally believe that the land was theirs all along.
Sen. Ron Tupa, D-Boulder, plans to co-sponsor the bill in the state Senate.
Witwer said he became interested in the law after Boulder residents Don and Susie Kirlin lost a third of their vacant lot to their neighbors in an adverse-possession lawsuit. Richard McLean, a former judge and former Boulder mayor, and his wife, attorney Edith Stevens, won the land last month.”
@Chris Vee:
That depends on the state. In some states, the lender literally holds title on your mortgaged property until the mortgage is done with. In other states, you hold title, but the lender becomes a lienholder on it.
From what I read on the whole situation:
a) The people walked though that lot daily and NEVER saw anyone on it.
b) None of these so called proof existed even a year ago. The paths are not on aerial photos, there are no photos of any of these so called events. Even the gardens show little on these photos
c) The judge in this case is a friend of the ex-judge who grabbed the land.
Overall, the whole situation stinks.
Our neighbor put up a fence a few years back to keep our kids from running into their yard. Didn’t ask us to help with the cost just did it. Well, we had someone come by a few months later and they asked us about OUR nice new fence. Turns out that ownership of the fence is given to whoever has the ugly side facing their property. When our neighbors built it they left the pretty side facing their property.
Since when does “doing something” with land IMPROVE it? I have never seen anything made by man that has been an improvement over God’s work.
Those people STOLE that property – PERIOD!
Would posting “NO TRESPASSING” signs assert one’s possession rights?