Posted on 03/08/2023 2:09:58 PM PST by nickcarraway
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 acre belonging to Banks for other purposes.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
We had a rustic cabin and my dad wanted to add on a small addition to have an inside bathroom with running water. One of the first steps was to have a survey done. The survey showed the property line farther to the west than thought.
The neighbor on the west saw the survey stakes and had his own survey done. His surveyor put the boundary farther east than anybody thought (existing fence) and had the line running through our cabin.
Dad gave up on the idea of the bathroom, and the property line dispute was dropped. I’m guessing he figured the additional surveying and legal expenses (and perhaps finding out the actual property line cut through our cabin) wasn’t worth it.
“Schrock had had a goat pen on it for decades”
Let that be a lesson to all of us. Don’t forget to check your vacant land at least once a decade. And also don’t forget that squatters can be animals, too.
If he didn’t leave her the property, then it was not hers.
Same laws apply. That was trespassing.
Why was the dumshit living in Delunaware?
He wasn’t. That’s the problem.
I have a situation like that with a small parcel in New Mexico. I pay $5 in real estate taxes each year and as far as I know I am still owner. I would sell if I could find a buyer. It’s an off-the-grid/earth ship type deal. Can dump a submachine gun magazine there if you want.
Fitty acres and no land at-all...Is everybody in Delaware the the nasty, ugly, rotten arse are cracked up to be?
A bigger problem happens.
You need to make sure that they are real happy with their current digs before trying this Hail Mary solution.
Squatters took over the right of way on a highway by Woodbine, Iowa. My FIL was in it the lean to to pay the squatter for putting up hay & it happened to be raining that day and water was running all over the dirt floor. The 80+ daughter still lives there but when she dies, the county will bulldoze it. Her parents grabbed it back in the 30’s I’m told.
Grounds for removal from da Erf in my book.
Pretty sure I remember (growing up in Maryland) that everyone not at the ocean moved to New Jersey every chance they got
We built a new house & was talking to a neighbor who had put in a chain link fence only to have the developer of the property next door tell him his fence was about 2’ over so he had to have the fence company backout to move it. My SIL has access to surveying equipment and while not official, he did verify that the pins matched the survey posts that they put in 5-10 years ago.
Adverse possession laws are similar in all states. This happens more than most people would believe.
Good points.
Its something every farmer does, especially now that there are hardly any family farmers, so it turns into situation where the common guy cant keep fighting the company behind the farms.
These laws are all garbage and need to be removed.
Sfl
Not sure, I didn’t read the story. (I was just commenting on adverse possession in general.)
Generally, if the local adverse requirements are met (including the duration requirement), the adverse possessor acquires vested property rights in possessed the land. It takes 20 years in Delaware, which is a long time as far as these things go.
Ignorance on the part of the land owner. Who wouldn’t know that someone was raising goats on a portion of property you intend to sale. I can imagine part of the description in the sale: “We even have wild goats on the property”.
I was asking....not saying...
One of the first modern cases of Adverse Posession involved a JUDGE who saw his neighbor’s land and built a pathway across it. The pathway existed for over a decade, when the judge decided to file a claim against the land. And WON.
He knew the land wasn’t his, but he encroached anyway and was awarded that portion of the land that he “claimed” with the path. It’s crazy.
As for staking, remember these laws go back to a time when there weren’t really accurate surveying methods or tools. A lot of land wasn’t staked/fenced and wasn’t required to be fenced. We’re talking about huge tracts of land.
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