Posted on 11/25/2007 6:31:07 PM PST by joanie-f
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 happens upon this thread to take ten minutes of his or her day to read about one such abuse of power. In terms of land area, it is a small abuse, and it affects only two ordinary American citizens who wield no more power than you or I. But its ramifications are enormous. If we’re not going to decide to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the two relatively anonymous Americans I’d like to introduce to you, exactly when will we decide that it’s time to unite in revolt against the growing ‘privileged elite’ in this country, and the menace they represent to us all? The so-called legal/justice system is using all manner of wicked precedent to commit major, obscene private land grabs ... all such crimes tracing back to a desire for more wealth and power on the part of those who already wield more than you or I.
Before inserting the precious words ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ into the Declaration, our Founders seriously considered using the wording ‘life, liberty and property’ (as originated by John Locke). I believe the latter to be a more powerful representation of our inalienable rights, but apparently the modern American government/judicial system vehemently disagrees with either expression.
Don and Susie Kirlin own a vacant lot, worth roughly a million dollars in today’s market, on the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado. They purchased it about twenty years ago with the idea of eventually building a home there. It is located just down the road from their current home, they walk by the land regularly, and they have been paying taxes on it faithfully for the past two decades.
Unfortunately for the Kirlins the couple that owns a home adjacent to their lot consists of a county judge, Richard McLean, and his wife, Edith Stevens, who is also an attorney. McLean and Stevens have been active, and powerful, in Boulder County politics for decades. It seems that this ambitious couple has been using a portion of the Kirlins’ land to occasionally hold their own private parties, and, in doing so, they have also created worn pathways through portions of that land.
It also would appear that these two believe that, if the Kirlins build a home on the land they purchased for just that reason, the view of the surrounding landscape from their own home would be diminished.
When the Kirlins attempted to build a fence on a portion of their vacant land before beginning construction on it, McLean and Stevens had a restraining order issued against them, stating that, since they had been using the land themselves for some time, they had become ‘attached’ to it and they are claiming it as their own. The restraining order was issued within a few hours of their request for it. Apparently the wheels of justice move at lighting speed, if the person requesting the moving has the right connections.
As a result, McLean and Stevens have invoked the doctrine of ‘adverse possession’, which allows a citizen to claim another’s property simply by virtue of using it for a specified period of time, in order to declare one third of the Kirlins’ land as their own. A Boulder judge has ordered the Kirlins to hand over to McLean and Stevens one-third of their land, which will result in their no longer owning sufficient land on which to construct not only their dream home but any home at all.
As if the preceding weren’t evidence in itself of unmitigated chutzpah, McLean and Stevens are not only claiming to ‘own’ a large portion of the land in question (without ever having paid a penny for it, or any of the taxes incumbent in its ownership), but they are also asking the court to rule that the Kirlins must pay any legal fees that they incur in order to achieve this particular theft.
Thus, as is becoming increasingly common in Amerika 2007, two people in power have decided to use a corrupt system to steal from someone else of lesser political stature -- in this case, out in the open, and without conscience or remorse.
Needless to say, the Kirlins are appealing the ruling (and amassing large, and no doubt growing, legal fees in the process). But I wouldn’t be taking any bets on their success. ‘Fighting city hall’ is fast becoming an empty phrase anymore, because the concepts of government of, by and for the people -- originally made possible by public servants who value individual rights more than government power -- is fast heading for extinction, as corruption, greed, and lust for power achieve a momentum that has become virtually relentless and unstoppable. Not to mention the fact that both the eighth (re: coveting) and tenth (re: stealing) of the Ten Commandments have essentially been declared null and void.
This case vividly portrays the battle between the average American citizen and our modern American 'ruling elite'. Yet too many Americans are more interested in the comfort of our couches, and the proximity of our remote controls, than we are in the plight of the likes of the Kirlins -- victims of a system gone awry.
Unless we Americans start giving a damn about the abuses that our neighbors suffer under tyrannical government dictates, those abuses will someday affect us, and there will be nobody left who can turn the tragedy around.
The only difference between appeasement and surrender is the passage of time.
Contact Information for Boulder, Colorado officials (and thanks, in advance, to all who avail themselves of this source of redress):
Cindy Domenico, Boulder County Commissioner
Ben Pearlman, Boulder County Commissioner
Will Toor, Boulder County Commissioner
Joan Fitzgerald, Colorado State Senator, District 16
Brandon Shaffer, Colorado State Senator, District 17
Ron Tupa, Colorado State Senator, District 18
Alice Madden, Colorado State Representative, District 10
Jack Pommer, Colorado State Representative, District 11
Paul Weissmann, Colorado State Representative, District 12
Claire Levy, Colorado State Representative, District 13
Dianne Primavera, Colorado State Representative, District 33
Resources:
Legal Landgrab Should Be Overturned on Appeal
Boulder Couple Accuses Former Judge, Mayor of Land Grab
Hard Feelings on Hardscrabble Drive
~ joanie
Allegiance and Duty Betrayed
So he uses the cars? Let's review what I said: "If you don't use . . ."
The law is all about justice, but has nothing to say concerning mercy, i.e., either getting what one doesn't deserve (grace), or not recieving just punishment; the latter would not be justice. The judge could be gracious or magnaminous and let the matter drop. As such, "punishment" would be meted out in the Kirlin's legal expenses. It would seem to me that the Kirlin's would nevertheless, and that notwithstanding, be under a common law obligation to recompense the judge his largess to them by sceding any claim to the property quid pro quo for remuneration of the judge's legal expenses.
At the very least the judge should remunerate the Kirlin's their property taxes since the Kirlin's bought the property.
From the Wiki:
In common law, adverse possession is the process by which title to another's real property is acquired without compensation, by, as the name suggests, holding the property in a manner that conflicts with the true owner's rights for a specified period of time. Circumstances of the adverse possession determine the type of title acquired by the adverse possessor, which may be fee simple title, mineral rights, or another interest in real property.Given that common law marriages are legal in Colorado, I'd infer that common law in this matter would apply also.The law of adverse possession is partly statutory and partly common law. The required period of uninterrupted possession arises out of a statutory limitation period or statute of limitations. Other elements of adverse possession are judicial constructs.
An adverse possessor will be committing a trespass on the property that they have taken and the owner of the property could cause them to be evicted by an action in trespass ("ejectment") or by bringing an action for possession. All common law jurisdictions require that the action of trespass is brought within a specified time, after which the true owner is assumed to have acquiesced. The effect of a failure by the land owner to evict the adverse possessor depends on the jurisdiction.
Moreover,
squatter's rights embody the most basic concept of property and ownership, which can be summed up by the adage "possession is nine-tenths of the law"; in other words, "the person who uses the property owns it". The homestead principle and squatter's rights pre-date formal property laws and to a large degree modern property law is a formalization and expansion of these simple ideas.From what I'm gathering, the land title holders were derelict in their responsibilities regarding their land. They should've maintained an "obvious and notorious" presence. Erecting a sign hanging from a timbered gate stating "Kirlin Acres", keeping an 1/8 acre mowed every month, and running a fence line around their property boundaries stating "Posted: No Trespessaing" and "No Hunting" makes such an "obvious and notorious" presence known to all.The essential ideas behind the homestead principle and squatter's rights hold generally for any type of item or property of which ownership can be asserted by simple use or possession. In modern law, homesteading and the right of adverse possession refer exclusively to real property. In the realm of personal property, the same impulse is summarized by the adage "finders keepers" and formalized by laws and conventions about abandoned property.
A great deal more information can be found at the following link (not only confirming, but expounding upon the afore cited Wiki excerpts in much greater detail). :
That's not right. The opinion details the various improvements to the land, including planting non-native vegetation, building a rock retaining wall, and pruning and maintaining trees.
adverse possession predates the United States.
The articles are still unclear if this is just an easement or the actual land.
What kind of people do not maintain their “dream house land”?
This seems rather insane.
The mind boggles when you think of how the Kirlins could get even with the greedy bastards by selling the property to a ""particular type of buyer""...hehehe.
Revenge is sweet and payback's a beotch!
Just sell it to somebody who then puts a car seat on the porch and has several junked automobiles, a washing machine, and other scrap in the front yard. HA!
I agree/
Would a big sign that reads “Keep Off, Private Property” help? What about homeowner’s associations?
I don’t doubt you see no grounds for appeal. You see nothing wrong in people having their property taken away from them for any unjust cause.
Adverse possession or theft under cover of law?
PING!
You pay your taxes so by your own yardstick you are no more a free man than those whom you accuse of being statists.
You pay your taxes so by your own yardstick you are no more a free man than those whom you accuse of being statists.
This sounds like something my parents would have fallen prey to. Being basically too trusting and naive to the ways of the law and to the stinkers that USE that law to line their wallets and further their own agenda, my parents probably would have been in the exact same delimma. And while ignorance of the law is no excuse, that still doesn't make what these aholes are doing and have done to the Kirlins right.
Aside from monetary assistance, what kind of assistance can we do? Just let me know.
It would appear on the surface the letter of the law has won out again over the spirit of the law. We really could use some additional information in this particular case, but I would submit the law was never designed to steal a piece of property set aside for a retirement home for its owners -- would you?
The real problem is that the plaintiffs failed to prove they had adverse possession of the land, but the judge gave it to them anyways, because he ignored the responsibility he had to justly consider the case.
IMHO, the county tax collector needs to investigate the plaintiffs for attempting to deny the county its property taxes. If the reassessment of their property fails to include the compounded taxes over the last 20 years, then law enforcement/DA needs to investigate possible conspiracy involving the plaintiffs, the trail judge, and the tax collector’s office.
When gross violations of the intent of property laws occur like this, generally more than one regulation/law has been violated.
If you don't even know that someone has walked across your property, what is to cue such an action? There was no evidence on the property that indicated that anyone had tresspassed. Do you regularly sue your neighbors, just in case thay might have tresspassed? The claimed use didn't leave a sufficient scar on the land to be seen in any of the three different generations of aerial photos that are on file at the city engineer's office.
Why can't you be honest enough to admit that the base premise of this case was facetious? There are some legitimate uses for quiet title suits, but cases like these will result in making such actions very difficult and costly in the future. That's injustice too.
All right.
Say you never use your car. You just keep it in a garage.
So the government should give it to me because I need a car to drive to work?
Shouldn't matter.
The judge does not have a deed to the property, the real owners have the deed.
This is legalized theft.
You don't watch your T.V?
OK, the government should give your T.V. to someone who will watch it.
What B.S.
Just exactly is your point?
Or do you even have a point?
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