Landowners Lose, Lawyers Win in Adverse Possession Fight
The centuries-old doctrine of adverse possession is alive and well–and benefiting two lawyers in Boulder, Colo.
An attempt to change the law in New York failed when Gov. Eliot Spitzer vetoed a bill this summer that would have barred the claim from homeowners who trample on land they know is owned by another, the New York Times reports. Spitzer said the bill would result in “extensive litigation of virtually every adverse possession claim.”
Adverse possession allows a trespasser to claim title to property if he or she has openly used it for a specified time. In New York the time period is 10 years; in Colorado it is 18 years.
The New York bill was passed after a 2006 ruling by the state’s highest court allowed an adverse possession claim even though the trespasser knew the property was owned by another person.
A recent Colorado case with similar facts also caused a stir, the Daily Camera reports. A judge there recently awarded title to about a third of a vacant lot to two neighboring homeowners who had used the property to reach their back yard. They also had hosted parties on the land and stored wood there.
Both trespassers, Edith Stevens and Richard McLean, were lawyers. Both testified they had known the lot was owned by someone else.
Lucas Ferrara, a Manhattan real estate lawyer, told the New York Times that “adverse possession is a legal theory whose time has come and gone.”
“There is little in the law as it stands now to stop the unscrupulous from claiming title to property they know full well is not theirs,” he said. “And it obviously penalizes the absentee owner.”
