Posted on 03/07/2023 12:49:22 AM PST by dennisw
Burton Banks, an Atlanta-based financial advisor, inherited from his father several plots of land in Ocean View, Delaware Banks wanted to sell part of the property in 2021, but learnt that his neighbor Melissa Schrock had been grazing her goats on the land
A judge last month ruled that Schrock had been on the property for more than 20 years and so had squatter's rights: Banks was forced to hand over the land
A judge in Delaware has ordered a businessman hand over a $125,000 parcel of land to his neighbor after she kept her goats on the land for over 20 years and claimed squatter's rights.
Burton Banks, an Atlanta-based financial advisor, inherited the uninhabited plot of land in Ocean View, Delaware, from his father Ralph.
In 2021 Banks and his husband David Barrett decided they wanted to sell the plot of land, which sits empty and undeveloped.
But he discovered that around two thirds of an acre was being used by his neighbor Melissa Schrock, who had erected a pen for her goats on the land.
'It's just always been my backyard since I was a little kid,' Schrock said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
He should then bill her for the taxes and any upkeep he’s paid in the past.
Yes, every piece in he world was at some point stolen from someone else.
Unless you have an expiry date for claims things get very messy for everyone.
Pretty standard in our state..When a survey map shows an encroachment the owners enter into an agreement...the key being they will never claim the encroachment by Adverse possession.
They showed us the sub plan...but not the map showing the encroachment.
No it doesn’t start again...
Christian charity is not caring about your land?
If someone is nice enough to give me some kind of neighborly break I can repay him by taking his land? Great.
Geez don’t ever lend any one your fecking car.
Seems that he would at least be due back taxes for 20 years on the land.
“In 18 years of being a Professional Land Surveyor, and nearly the same working for the DOT”
GREAT to have you guys here!
Generally, your granny allowing them to use it, would toll the rights in adverse possession from that very moment on. Unless she was NOT the true owner, or this is a weird jurisdiction. Something else happened here. Like granny dies, and new owner fails to watch for adverse possessors, and new owner loses the rights under AP.
It will not be challenged...and banks said he will not go after it. Don’t forget, we’re talking about 1 piece 170’ x 170’ or 2/3 acre. I doubt the “vacant” value is $125,000.
Paying taxes on land in Delaware doesn’t prove anything in the courts in this state. The courts will still give your land to any grifter who claims they were there for 20 years and ‘openly’ occupied it. Been there . Had land ‘legally’ taken by a judge who said a trespasser had more rights than I did.
The goal of illegal immigration cartels. Thats only a handful if elections cycles.
While the concept of inviolable private property ownership is a good and righteous thing, no jurisdiction in the US recognizes the concept further than state ownership
I understand that.
If land is on the survey of a parcel of specific dimensions that someone purchased with their own money, it’s theirs, no matter how they decide to use it or not.
Taking it is no different than robbing them of their actual money.
He should have just erected a wolf pen on the part of the land next to her goats. Soon she’d have an empty goat pen.
Not what I’ve been told by NC attorneys.
I have a perimeter trail around my ranch, I patrol it weekly.
Its called adverse possession. No, I didn’t like it either when it was taught to me in my Property I and Property II classes in law school. There is a good reason for it though. Courts have been geared toward achieving maximum economic efficiency. Having land sit idle and unused is not economically beneficial. So if someone uses the land for long enough and the actual owner does not contest their usage of it or assert their rights to it, then eventually, they lose that land......they obviously weren’t using it.
But to meet the conditions for adverse possession it has to be “adverse and hostile” meaning the person using the land has to claim its theirs, not that its somebody else’s and they’re just using it. It has to be “open and notorious” meaning they can’t do it on the sly. In several states, the squatter has to pay the property taxes on that land to satisfy the open and notorious requirement. etc etc.
In other words, you really have to neglect your property in order to lose it to adverse possession by another. As is often the case in the law, if you sit on your rights and don’t enforce them, you lose them.
The law of adverse possession. Its real folks. If you own land police it, fence it and generally just be an ahole about it.
We have a crazy meth head next to our rural compound that thinks he owns part of our acreage we recently purchased. We showed him the property stakes from the new survey one time. Now we are throwing his junk back over the line and running 3 Strand wire barbed fence while he stands in his driveway and watches. We put up metal gates with locks on both driveways as well as no trespassing signs and lights. We make sure to regularly walk the 5.5 acres and get in some target practice when we’re up there. In fact we’re headed up there later this morning. 😏
The previous owner told us that this nut had let his buddy move a travel trailer onto the property while he was out of town on a long term project. They even installed a bootleg septic system. Our seller had to kick him off.
In a completely worldly sense, property ownership has important legal implications. Ignore them at your peril.
OK -- fair enough.
But what does this have to do with the real-world example I gave of a common area in an HOA?
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