More adverse posession nonsense results in arrest

[Judge Roy Bean]

I especially like the Polk County Sheriff's video interview (worth waiting through the ad).

http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/r ... -one-month

Here in Texas, the Senate has passed SB847 which prevents adverse possession claims from being a defense against of burglary charges.

[fortinbras]

Adverse possession doesn't become a mature issue unless/until the adverse possessor stays in continuous possession for TWENTY YEARS. Up through the 19th year, the legal owner can bring an action for trespass or some similar wrongdoing.

[Pottapaug1938]

Adverse possession doesn't become a mature issue unless/until the adverse possessor stays in continuous possession for TWENTY YEARS. Up through the 19th year, the legal owner can bring an action for trespass or some similar wrongdoing.

Yeah, but that doesn't matter to these people. All it takes is someone sitting next to them at the bar/beautysalon/donut shop/church/whatever, and saying "hey -- did you know that there's this thing called adverse possession, in which you can take over and own something, without having to buy it, just by occupying it like you already owned it?" Sure, they omit a whole bunch of facts; but even if they did, these idjits wouldn't care. They'd hear what they wanted to hear, and go out trolling for an abandoned house to seize....

[JamesVincent]

I especially like the Polk County Sheriff's video interview (worth waiting through the ad).

Well worth sitting through the ad. I like him

[Flatulating Bovine]

I remember a case where a woman was claiming she had been adversely possessing a property as a means of holding off foreclosure. The problem was, the trustee's deed had only been filed two years earlier. So, in order to come up with the right number of years of adverse possession, she claimed she was adversely possessing the property ever since loan origination, against herself. She did not win.

[Arthur Rubin]

I thought it was only 7-15 years for adverse possession.... Different states, I guess. I think maybe it was 7 years with actual notice.

[obadiah]

In Washington:
1) Open and Notorious for 7 years,
2) Hostile,
3) Exclusive
4) Continuous

Also, as of July 2012, the law became much more fair as the result of ESHB 1026, an amendment to the law that establishes a basis for the trial court to award attorney fees to the prevailing party in an adverse possession case.

As an aside, a gentleman up the street from me built his house and yard WAY over the neighbor's property line (an empty woodsy lot) and seems to have fulfilled the above requirements. I'm waiting to see if he knows about or goes this route.

[grixit]

Well, there is also urban homesteading. And $1 property sales. But that comes with broken down buildings and dead yards, sometimes filled with rubble, that you have to fix up. But who wants that? Better to find a nice place with no work required except clenching your fists, squeezing your eyes shut and repeating "it's mine, i have the right to live here!" over and over again.

[Chados]

The first one of these I dealt with was a sovereign. Since then, I haven't seen a sovereign doing these, it's just a garden-variety scam and I haven't the vaguest where these folks are getting the idea from. Probably off the internet someplace. It's basically a "something-for-nothing" game that is, for all intents and purposes, stealing.

[Assessor]

I've come across this scam with contractors when I was researching the Blessings of Liberty ordeal here in Minneapolis. Contractors see a lot of abandoned properties, or just notice them more readily than most other people, and several of them I that talked to believe in adverse possession. None of them were willing to actually go through with it, though. Just like the Bills of Exchange, it's seen as 'real' but too much hassle to be worth your time.

The most common 'proof' that I ran into was one contractor's failure to make AP work. He and his wife kept five dogs in a foreclosed house that they didn't own, then claimed the house later by virtue of it being occupied. This didn't work, I was told, because dogs aren't people. Three guys told me this story, and they all said it would have worked if the couple had just spent nights at the house. So, yeah, it's "real".

[fortinbras]

Adverse possession is real enough and it still occurs in modern times. It requires open & notorious possession combined with words or deed expressing a claim of ownership that is incompatible with another's claim of ownership. This means that just sneaking into the basement quietly every night is not enough. Or moving in, but ever so carefully not re-arranging the owner's furniture, is not enough. The claimant must move in, and thereafter keep the owner of record out. The general amount of time to establish adverse possession is 20 years, although some states may have specified by legislation a lesser amount, such as 14 years. This time only counts if the possession is continuous - breaking in once or twice a year won't do it - and the entire period of possession must be adverse - meaning that if the possession began as an invited guest, that period of time doesn't begin to run until the occupant openly claims ownership against the claim of the original owner. Obviously if the legal owner (or another person) ousts the adverse possessor before the required time, his eligibility to obtain ownership is terminated.

The claimant is claiming a full fee simple ownership of the real estate - not just some side issue such as the collecting the fruit from the trees on the property.

And the claimant is acknowledging that he is in possession contrary to the wishes of the owner of record; pretending that this land was ownerless undermines the adverse nature required of adverse possession.

There are some additional details but this pretty much articulates the basics.

[Quixote]

That was not a case of adverse possession.

I especially like the Polk County Sheriff's video interview (worth waiting through the ad).

http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/r ... -one-month

Here in Texas, the Senate has passed SB847 which prevents adverse possession claims from being a defense against of burglary charges.

That's SB 947. It's interesting how much the version reported out of the Committe on Jurisprudence differed from the introduced bill.