Free Republic

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...

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...

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 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 ...

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...

A judiciary oversight committee has rejected a Boulder couple's request to investigate a neighboring couple who used an arcane legal loophole to take over their property. The Colorado Supreme Court's Attorney Regulation Counsel rejected Don and Susie Kirlin's request to investigate ex-judge and former Boulder mayor Richard McLean and his lawyer wife Edith Stevens, who won a strip of their property on Hardscrabble Drive. In a letter to the Kirlins, assistant regulation counsel Louise Culberson-Smith said that the McLean and Stevens' use of an "adverse possession claim" to win the land does not constitute a violation of the Rules of...