Free Republic

“The Florida Legislature unanimously passed a bill that would allow police to immediately remove squatters — a departure from the lengthy court cases required in most states.” For some inexplicable reason, squatters’ rights laws are commonplace throughout these United States. In many states, a person or persons can enter and inhabit another person’s vacant property, set up house, and after—in most cases—a mere 30 days claim some form of bizarre “right” to inhabit the home in which they did not pay a day’s rent nor a single mortgage payment: a home they do not own, did not buy, and have...

A man lost his more than $100,000 property in a Delaware beachside community after his neighbor claimed squatter’s rights during a court battle over the parcel. Burton Banks was forced to transfer to Melissa Schrock the title of the undeveloped land he inherited from his late father due to the little-known adverse possession code in the Diamond State, according to the Delaware News Journal. Banks reportedly wanted to sell part of the Ocean View property in 2021, worth about $125,000, when he discovered Schrock had had a goat pen on it for decades. She also used about two-thirds of the...

If you own a piece of property, it's a good idea to know what is going on there. If you don't, you could end up losing it. A Valley woman can attest. The woman and her husband purchased a large parcel of land a few miles away from their home as an investment, and sort of forgot about it. Meanwhile, a neighbor to the land used it for 21 years and then claimed ownership, using the old "squatter's rights" law in Pennsylvania. "We purchased it in the 1970s, as an investment," the woman said. "We paid the taxes on it...

Kirlins say they will only have to cede 15 percent of south Boulder lot. Two Boulder neighbors have settled an adverse-possession case that made national headlines last year and prompted changes to the state's law, according to a joint statement released Tuesday. Don and Susie Kirlin, who originally lost 34 percent of one of their vacant south Boulder lots to their neighbors Richard McLean and Edith Stevens, said they had settled a lawsuit and will only cede 15 percent of the lot. "This settlement allows the parties to put this longstanding and difficult dispute behind them," the couples wrote in...

Exactly as some legal experts predicted, Boulder's courts saw a spike in claims of "adverse possession" filed by people apparently trying to beat the clock on changes to the controversial land law. Of the 25 active adverse-possession lawsuits in Boulder County -- where a person or company claims someone else's land after trespassing on it for at least 18 years -- 15 of those cases were filed in June Some of those cases were filed just hours before changes to the law went into effect last Tuesday, court records show. The changes, drafted by a bipartisan group of state legislators...

Richard McLean and Edith Stevens did not fabricate evidence or lie to win their controversial land case against neighbors Don and Susie Kirlin, District Judge James C. Klein ruled today. Klein’s order essentially upholds his decision last fall to award about 34 percent of one of the Kirlins’ vacant lots to McLean and Stevens after they sued for it using the squatter’s-rights law of “adverse possession.” The Kirlins had filed paperwork earlier this year alleging that McLean, a former district court judge, and Stevens, an attorney, faked evidence of a dirt path across the Kirlins’ property and lied about using...

Adverse possession law set to change. Beginning July 1, people hoping to use "adverse possession" to take control of another person's land had better be prepared to pay for it... The bill, which garnered wide bipartisan support among state lawmakers, requires that an adverse possessor believe in "good faith" that the land is actually his or her own. It also raises the burden of proof in an adverse-possession case and gives judges the power to make plaintiffs payfor any land they are awarded. Witwer on Friday said the bill is a victory for property owners. "This will make it harder...

A Boulder County District Court judge charged with revisiting a controversial land dispute should not consider "outrageous" claims that Richard McLean and Edith Stevens lied to win their case, according to the couple's attorney. In court documents submitted Tuesday, Boulder attorney Kim Hult responded pointedly to accusations made by Don and Susie Kirlin that their neighbors fabricated a path across their Hardscrabble Drive vacant lot. The thin dirt trail, which has come to be known as "Edie's Path," was a critical piece of evidence that in part led Judge James C. Klein last fall to award about a third of...

A Colorado district court judge who awarded part of a million-dollar residential land parcel to a retired judge and his wife under the state's little-used "adverse possession" law will have an opportunity to review his original decision. The Colorado Court of Appeals has agreed to send the controversial case that benefited retired judge Richard McLean and his wife, Edith Stevens, back to Boulder County District Judge James Klein, who made the original decision, according to a report in the Boulder Daily Camera. The couple who lost the property, Don and Susie Kirlin, had asked the appellate court to return the...

Galen Foster's home and business of 23 years is supposed to make way for parking for the Wadsworth Boulevard light-rail station in Lakewood. But what chaps Foster's hide is that there already are conceptual plans showing his property being used not for transit parking, but for a five-story commercial office building. While government's right of condemnation, more politely called eminent domain, has been recognized for centuries, the Regional Transportation District is entering an untested area that includes economic development in its efforts to build the FasTracks West Corridor line. While there is little room to challenge RTD's acquisition of land...

A war of words continues in a high-profile Boulder land case, with each side accusing the other of lying. In January, Don and Susie Kirlin appealed an October ruling by Boulder County District Court Judge James C. Klein that awarded a third of their million-dollar lot to neighbors Richard McLean and Edith Stevens, based on the squatter's-rights law of "adverse possession." The Kirlins at the same time filed a request with the Colorado Court of Appeals to send the case back to the district court level to hear additional evidence, alleging their neighbors fabricated evidence to win their case. After...

McLean, Stevens ‘Insulted’. A Boulder couple who lost part of their million-dollar lot in a land dispute has filed a motion accusing their neighbors of fabricating crucial evidence. "These people have committed fraud on the court," said Don Kirlin. Don and Susie Kirlin said they have new evidence their neighbors, Dick McLean and Edie Stevens, deceptively created a path on the vacant lot next door after they sued for it. McLean and Stevens have said they've used "Edie's path" for the last 25 years to access their back yard with no objection from the Kirlins, a crucial part of their...

Lawmakers Want To Make Adverse Possession More Difficult. A proposal seeking to change a controversial "land grab" law ... A little more than half of the representatives in the State House have signed on as sponsors of a bill that would make adverse possession of property more difficult. “Clearly the time has come to change the law of adverse possession in Colorado,”... The proposal is in response to a ‘land grab’ situation in South Boulder where former mayor and district judge Richard McLean and Edie Stevens, an attorney, sued their neighbors Don and Susie Kirlin for their land. The couple...

The Boulder couple who successfully sued for part of their neighbors' land mailed a letter this week to "those who have supported us," saying they hoped to restore peace in their neighborhood. Richard McLean and Edith Stevens, plaintiffs in the controversial adverse-possession case against Don and Susie Kirlin, spelled out their side of the story in the four-page letter -- obtained by the Camera from a recipient who wished to remain anonymous. "We still hope that we can reconcile our differences with the Kirlins and restore peace in our neighborhood and community," McLean and Stevens wrote. Contacted at her home...

Howard Hawks' "Red River" isn't just any Western. It was the last movie playing in the small-town Texas theater in the Peter Bogdanovich/Cybill Shepherd film (from the Larry McMurtry novel) "The Last Picture Show." It was Montgomery Clift's first -- and many say John Wayne's best -- film. And how does novelist Borden Chase's quintessential American tale of the first great post-Civil War cattle drive begin? Wayne's Tom Dunson and Clift's Matt Garth start one of the great Texas cattle herds with one bull and one cow and all the land between the Red River and the Rio Grande --...

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 ...

The land-dispute case on Hardscrabble Drive isn't the first time a former Boulder judge has used the legal concept of "adverse possession" to win land from a neighbor. Earlier this year, the secretary of the Indian Peaks chapter of the Sierra Club and his wife lost about 100 square feet of their property to Marsha Yeager, a former judge, and her husband, John Yeager. The issue of adverse possession hit the spotlight earlier this month when Don and Susie Kirlin lost about a third of their property to their neighbors — former judge Richard McLean and his wife, Edith Stevens...

Don and Susie Kirlin of Boulder, Colordao. How many times have we heard about government abuses of the right to own property going on in neighborhoods across America, in the form of the invoking of the right of ‘eminent domain’, and the corruption of other legal concepts? Kelo vs. New London is probably the most publicized of such unconstitutional atrocities, but similar atrocities occur daily across this country. How many of us have attempted to help the victims of such abuses of power? I myself have done so no more than once or twice. I ask any FReeper who...

BOULDER -- The "adverse possession" case through which retired Boulder judge Richard McLean was able to grab a swath of land on a neighbor's vacant lot triggering cries of protest by people who don't know any parties involved is not the first time a former Boulder judge has used the law against a neighbor. Former Boulder County Judge Marsha Yeager, whose tenure on the Boulder County bench overlapped that of McLean, filed a successful "adverse possession" case against her neighbor in 2002. --snip-- In Yeager's case, she filed suit against the family of Cosima Krueger-Cunningham, to settle ownership of a...

Legal land grab should be overturned on appeal By The Denver Post Article Last Updated: 11/20/2007 06:50:45 PM MST For years, the judge and his attorney wife eyed a vacant lot next door to their Boulder home. They regularly trespassed on it, created paths and even held parties on the land. You might think this high-powered couple would have gotten in some sort of trouble for this. You would be wrong. In fact, Richard McLean, a former Boulder mayor and RTD board member, and his wife, Edith Stevens, were rewarded for their actions.