Posted on 12/05/2007 7:40:01 PM PST by george76
A judge who granted a couple part of their neighbors' property in an adverse-possession lawsuit has denied their request to add on a strip of land 9 inches wide.
Richard McLean and Edith Stevens, of Boulder, had asked for the full width of a disputed path on land purchased by their neighbors Don and Susie Kirlin.
In October, McLean and Stevens were awarded about a third of the Kirlins' lot, or more than 1,400 square feet...
A judge said last week he could only consider evidence presented at trial ...
(Excerpt) Read more at thedenverchannel.com ...
"I'll defend her honor your honor."
"First I'll have to examine her briefs."
"Well on her or off her, make up your mind."
"Definitely on her, that's the best offer I've had all week!"
Cheers!
” How greedy can you get? “
Enough to go back for another bite...
It’s a good thing Colorado doesn’t border Mexico...
I wonder if there’s a particular reason they want that 9 inches. I have a weird property line issue at my home, so I can appreciate what a difference a few inches can make.
My property line runs up the center of my driveway, but the other half of the driveway and a couple of feet on that side are technically part of a neighboring lot. You might think that the owner/occupant of the neighboring lot is the other party that uses the driveway, but you’d be wrong. The driveway is the only access to, and only the access to, my property and a THIRD lot which doesn’t own a single square inch of the driveway or the ground on the far side of it. There are now lateral support issues developing which will eventually require me and the other property owner who is entitled (by deed) to access via the driveway, to force the owner of the property to shore up his collapsed retaining wall that is causing “his” side of the driveway to collapse, even though he has no use whatsoever for half a driveway that doesn’t provide access to his property, so he doesn’t give a cr@p about it.
Re the couple foot wide strip of ground on that side of the driveway, for several years up until a few weeks ago, it was sporting a progressively leaning 10 foot chain link fence with 3 rows of rusty barbed wire on top. The lean had literally reached a 45 degree angle (fortunately towards HIS property). The fence serves no purpose whatsoever, since it’s at one side of his parking lot (it’s a commercial property), and another side is completely unfenced and can be driven onto from the street at any point. The fence was just hauled upright by the new tenant at his own expense, using guywires planted a couple of inches from the edge of the driveway (for liability reasons, as he reasonably feared the thing would fall on his customers parked cars), but is still hideous and serving no purpose whatsoever.
If I got control of that little strip of land, I could get rid of the d@mn fence and fix the retaining wall and re-pave the driveway without dealing with the pain-in-the-@ss owner. I’m plenty willing to pay to get all that work done, but not when somebody else owns the property and is free to do things like leave an ugly massive fence leaning at a 45% angle.
Other than property rights issues, sometimes there is a FAR zoning issue , or insurance issues.
What if someone slips on some ice and gets hurt. Does your insurance cover your land that has their driveway which is not properly maintained ?
Ye GADS...
Talk about Chutzpah!!!
The idea was that unclaimed property or abandoned property used by others becomes the property of the one who upkeeps it.
But most of the country, except state and federal lands, is in someone’s hands. Barring Antarctica, there isn’t anywhere the concept is reasonable anymore.
Big Ten Inch Record Lyrics
Artist(Band):Aerosmith
Got me the strangest woman
Believe it, this chick’s no sinch
When I wanna get her goin’
Then I whip out my Big Ten Inch
Record of the band that plays the blues
Well the band that plays the blues
She just loved my Big Ten Inch
Record of her favorite blues
Last night I tried to tease her
I gave my love a little pinch
But she said now stop that jivin
now whip out your big ten-inch
Record of the band that plays the blues
Well the band that plays the blues
She just loved my Big Ten Inch
Record of her favorite blues
I’ll cover her with kisses
and when we’re in a lover’s clinch
she gets all excited
when she puts on my big ten-inch
Record of the band that plays the blues
Well the band that plays the blues
She just loved my Big Ten Inch
Record of her favorite blues
My gal don’t go smokin’
and liquor just makes her flinch
Seems she don’t go for nothin’
‘cept for my big ten-inch
Record of the band that plays the blues
Band that plays the blues
She just loved my Big Ten Inch
Record of her favorite blues
Its a topic that more people should know more about.
How many inches do the courts have?
A trip to the county courthouse (or the county GIS site) would probably reveal that your shared driveway is on a prescriptive easement, so adverse possession would not apply.
I’m sure my insurance company doesn’t have a clue about the property line/driveway issue. And given that I only own half of it and a third property owner is the only other legally authorized user of the driveway, anybody trying to figure out who to sue would be in quite a muddle. I mean, who is required to keep it safe? Clearly not just one party. All three parties? Maybe two parties (but which two)? I have a law degree, and recognize that it’s a bizarre situation that defies any clear legal solution in the event of a liability suit.
The driveway is not unsafe at this point (apart from occasional transient snow/ice issues), but is reaching the point where it’s obvious need of re-paving, and obvious land-settling under one side would certainly be a drag on my property value if I wanted to sell. If it develops a pothole (a fairly imminent possibility) it could start posing some risk of damage to the underside of low-slung vehicles.
Unbelievable scum those libs are!
It certainly can't be denied this guy has big ones...great big humongous brass ones. What an absolute scumbag.
Back at the dawn of time, back even before Arthur Krock first arrived in Washington to cover the administration of William Howard Taft for the Louisville Times, a terrible thing happened at the printing plant in Louisville. There was an ad in the paper for women’s underwear, as Krock recounted the episode to a young writer on the New York World, and it was supposed to say, “If these sizes are too big, take a tuck in them.” But as Krock was reading through that night’s first edition, he saw that someone had changed the first letter in the word “tuck.”Krock ordered the ad changed for the next edition, then summoned the printer and demanded an explanation. The printer couldn’t provide one. He couldn’t understand how such an embarrassing accident could have happened. Krock remained suspicious. Two days later, he went and interrogated the printer again, in the interrogatory manner that would daunt future presidents and secretaries of state when Krock became Washington bureau chief for the New York Times. The printer confessed. “Mr. Krock,” he said, trying finally to explain, “you do nothing your whole life but watch for something like that happening, so as to head it off, and then, Mr. Krock, you catch yourself watching for chances to do it.”
— Otto Friedrich, City of Nets.
Your insurance company would likely only hear about a problem after the incident and / or lawsuit.
Hopefully it never happens.
Since Dick McClean is an RTD board member, We can surmise that the idea to steal the Kirlin’s land originated there,
or did he encourage the RTD board to proceed with their theft after his success at home?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1934047/posts
Actually, such clarity is probably not available. The deed to my property (and presumably also the deed to the other property that uses the driveway) contains a provision that “the alley” must be kept passable — but is not clear on exactly what constitutes “the alley”. Could very reasonably be interpreted to include the perpendicular “lane” at the top of the driveway, part of which is entirely on my property and part of which is entirely on the third lot, and none of which is on the property of the leaning fence lot. We (I and the third property owner) routinely have vehicles backing into each other’s portion of that lane when exiting our parking areas to go down the driveway.
This deed provision clearly dates back to horse-and-buggy era (both properties originally had “parking stalls” for horses at one side of this lane, long since replaced by open parking spaces) so the deed clearly wasn’t referring to “passable” by low slung sports cars, i.e. perfectly flat and paved. I very much doubt there is any other easement recorded anywhere, and the deed provision is so vague as to what land is being discussed that there might well be an adverse possession claim available, especially if the portion of the driveway that has had no use or utility to its technical owner for a century or more should become unpassable from lack of maintenance. Whoever pays to have it made passable would certainly have a strong claim against THAT property owner (but no claim to stop the third property owner from using the driveway).
Complicated enough yet? In all likelihood, that already happened many decades ago. I can guarantee that the driveway was neither originally nor most recently paved with any participation from the owner of the other half, and from what I know of the history my property and the third property (the one that owns none of the driveway), the paving was almost certainly originally and most recently done exclusively by an owner of THAT property pre-dating the current owner and the previous owner. That third property owner might well have a stronger adverse possession claim on the strip of driveway than I do (though perhaps not on the adjacent strip of unpaved ground), given that the only reason the driveway is still passable as required by at least two deeds, is that previous owners of the third property paid to make it so.
Frankly, the best resolution is for me and property owner number three (a good guy, who’s into small-time real estate investing) to simply buy out the leaning-fence property, and get the lots re-surveyed and re-drawn, and build up the raised driveway area to give each of us full ownership of a whole driveway accessing our respective properties, and then re-sell the lot minus the half driveway that no owner of the lot would ever have any use for (i.e. we’d end up paying nothing at all for the extra land). If and when it gets put on the market, I suspect that’s exactly what we’ll do. If any conflicts arise, we may pressure the owner to sell to us, under threat of legally forcing him to spend lots of money to shore up land under a driveway he has no use for.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.