Neighbor thinks he owns my land?

[chucko]

When you bought the land did you get title insurance? Don't they help in such matters? I bet a simple letter from them would do the job

 

[orezok]

Attached is a link to California law. It includes a series of different problems/situations and legal solutions to those problems/situations.

It's 10 pages long but very comprehensive and is probably similar to most states.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26990234/California-Adverse-Possession.pdf

 

[two_bit_score]

When you bought the land did you get title insurance? Don't they help in such matters? I bet a simple letter from them would do the job

Title insurance normally doesn't guarantee what is on the ground matches the legal description they go by.


.

 

[dodge man]

Title insurance doesn't normally cover anything "a current and accurate survey" would disclose. I can almost guarantee title insurance wouldn't cover this problem.

 

[strum456]

Wow, I havent checked this in a couple days. Thank you everyone for all the helpful advice. As of right now, I am still waiting for the surveyor. I hope he comes out this week.

 

[turnkey4099]

It's 21 years in Ohio, and it has to be continuous. And it has to be open, notorious and hostile. And at the end of the 21 years, there has to be a judgement to make it legal.

In addition to that there is usually added a phrase similar to "owner knew or should have known".

One can allow others to openly use land as long as he grants them permission to do so. That avoids the danger of adverse possesion. One of the common losses under it is someone making a track to access their own property. Becomes a deeded ROW if allowed to continue without objection.

Harry K

 

[johnrex62]

I realize adverse possession exists but it seems to me to be the stupidist provision ever though of. If you have a deed that proves you own a piece of property it should be your property until to sell it, even if you never set foot on the place to see if anyone is trespassing. To allow squatters to gain title to property is insane. Thats like saying if you steal a car and keep it x number of years then legally the car becomes yours.

It may not make much sense today, but it was an important principle in it's day. The opening of unoccupied territory for settlement in the early years of expansion by Mexico, The United States and Canada was intended to prove and protect the claim of the respective nation to land boundries. Simple deeds and contracts proclaiming ownership would not suffice to enforce boundries if another country claimed ownership as well. This is the basis for the phrase "possession is 9/10s of the law". In order to be able to prove ownership, a country had to have people physically using and improving the land in an active and ongoing manner. Adverse possession was a legal means to revoke unused and unmaintained land ownership and replace inactive claims with active ones. This served two purposes. It allowed for the capture of "foreign" land through a use claim and it protected existing claims from becoming dormant through replacement of missing or neglectful owners.

It was not the spirit of the law to promote land grabs from active property owners, just an unfortunate side effect. Modern international law has negated much of the benefit from this process, but it is still on the books and still utilized in everyday real estate.

 

[RobertN]

Grant Line Road just north of Sacramento is an example. It runs straight for miles. I was the boundary for one of the Mexican land grrants is the 1800's(Rio Americanos I think, for it's location near the American River that flows from the Sierra's to the Sacramento River).

It may not make much sense today, but it was an important principle in it's day. The opening of unoccupied territory for settlement in the early years of expansion by Mexico, The United States and Canada was intended to prove and protect the claim of the respective nation to land boundries. Simple deeds and contracts proclaiming ownership would not suffice to enforce boundries if another country claimed ownership as well.

 

[RoyJackson]

It may not make much sense today, but it was an important principle in it's day.

IIRC, it was used during slum renovation in the 1960's too.

 

[R_Walter]

It may not make much sense today, but it was an important principle in it's day. The opening of unoccupied territory for settlement in the early years of expansion by Mexico, The United States and Canada was intended to prove and protect the claim of the respective nation to land boundries. Simple deeds and contracts proclaiming ownership would not suffice to enforce boundries if another country claimed ownership as well. This is the basis for the phrase "possession is 9/10s of the law". In order to be able to prove ownership, a country had to have people physically using and improving the land in an active and ongoing manner. Adverse possession was a legal means to revoke unused and unmaintained land ownership and replace inactive claims with active ones. This served two purposes. It allowed for the capture of "foreign" land through a use claim and it protected existing claims from becoming dormant through replacement of missing or neglectful owners.

It was not the spirit of the law to promote land grabs from active property owners, just an unfortunate side effect. Modern international law has negated much of the benefit from this process, but it is still on the books and still utilized in everyday real estate.

Nice try... BUT, the origins of 'adverse posession' in this country go back to Great Britain and the Middle Ages.