NY’s Adverse Possession Law Revamped
Posted on Tuesday, 8 of July , 2008 at 11:28 pm
ALBANY—A year ago, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer vetoed legislation that would have protected landowners by barring someone who knowingly occupies someone else’s property from seizing it under New York’s adverse possession law, also known as “squatter’s rights”.
Under a new law signed Tuesday by Gov. David Paterson, no longer can adverse possession of property occur simply because someone mows someone’s lawn for 10 years or because a fence, hedge, shrub, shed or minimal, non-structural item is placed across the deeded property line.
Adverse possession allows a person to claim ownership of land he or she has maintained for 10 years if the owner does not claim it during that time period.
The law prior to Tuesday said that the land had to be “usually cultivated or improved” which has been held to be mowed or with the installation of a fence. The new law requires that the intrusion or encroachment on the property in question must be “sufficiently open to put a reasonably diligent owner on notice” or there must be a “substantial enclosure”.
The new law requires that the claimant must have a “claim of right” or “reasonable basis for the belief” that the property is theirs to take adverse possession.
The legislation was sponsored by Senator Betty Little (R-C-I) Queensbury and Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward (R-Willsboro)
Little had introduced the legislation in response to a dispute in Queensbury, Warren County, that wound its way to New York’s Court of Appeals. In that case, Paul and Denise Przyblo of 11 Butternut Drive, Queensbury, unsuccessfully challenged an effort by their neighbor, lawyer G. Scott Walling, to adversely possess a 5,800 square foot piece of land that Walling had mowed for more than 10 years but which belonged to the Przyblos. The Pryzblos argued that Walling had knowledge that he did not own the disputed property. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/070206SquattersRights.html http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/050606AdverseEthics.html http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/121905AdversePossession.html
Walling is the former law clerk for Justice Thomas Mercure of the Appellate Division, the author of an opinion in a previous adverse possession case in Warren County which is cited in the Przybylo case which gave possession of the property in dispute to Walling.
Walling had represented himself before his former employer, the Appellate Division.The state’s highest court held in their 7-0 decision that because actual knowledge that another person is the title owner of property does not, in and of itself, defeat a claim of right by an adverse possessor, the Appellate Court decision awarding the property to Walling was affirmed.
The high court ruled that in adverse possession claims “conduct will prevail over knowledge” and that the adverse possession will defeat a deed even if the adverse possessor has knowledge of the deed. In other words, an individual could knowingly take another person’s property if the technical requirements of the law, such as openly and notoriously improving a parcel of land for 10 years, have been met.
The bill vetoed last year by Spitzer would have precluded adverse possession by anyone who knew their neighbor was the true owner. This year’s measure was refined. 7-08-08
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Category: Courts, Good News, Government, New York State, Politics, Warren County
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