Wrong Bluto,

Let's say you have a fence company construct a fence between your property and mine. Both of us having 1000 acres.

The fence builders mislocate the fence by 500 feet along our common line, which is 1 mile in length.

In the mean time, I farm the land, raise cattle on it and improve that 500 foot strip.

After the statutory period expires, we both find out the fence was in error. You want to move the fence toward my property 500 feet.

My response will be no, because I improved the land and own it now by adverse possession and after filing that claim in court, that 60 acres will be mine.

Who's fault is it that the fence was not located properly? My opinion is, it is the landowners fault. If a fence is to be put in the correct place, get a Surveyor to the property and have them locate the property corners and stake the line out every 100 feet for the fencing crew. Problem is, most land owners don't want to pay for a Surveyor to provide this service, until it it too late.

By the sounds of it the KR could use its considerable financial capabilities to continually resurvey it's borders and expand little by little each year, effectively doing what it was infamous for doing during its initial land grab, just a little more legally and less coercive.

1. It sucks that this was over a hog but at the end of the day, the guy shot across proerty lines and took an animal.

2. The KR has continued to use the property (survey, mark, etc) so I doubt the other guy will prevail on an AP claim.

3. You can put your fence anywhere you want on your own property.

4. The KR and the guy just need to get an agreement that the neighboring landowners will not hunt or shoot across the KR property and if they do...[insert whatever provisions they agree to].

I stopped reading once I realized the source was The Caller.

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Your loss. David is a very good outdoors columnist.

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Third, placing a feeder would not be considered hostile occupation. IMO, that would not constitute adverse possession.

The only thing that could save him and allow him to win an adverse possession case, would be if he made improvements to the area, ie: farming, orchard, etc, indicating open and notorious ownership.

I can see how him taking his grandfathers word would affect how he feels about the ownership, but unless they actuall had a survey of their own, disputing what the King Ranch is telling them, they basically have no leg to stand on in court.

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Technically I think placing feeders and hunting the area continuously (during traditional hunting seasons) may be sufficient to satisfy an adverse posession claim. You don't necessarily have to make improvements just use the land as its character dictates.

Continuously means 365 days of the year, not just during hunting season.

One of the stipulations for claiming adverse possession of unfenced property is that there has to be improvements of some type taking place and it has to be open and notorious. As I stated before, tilling the land for farming, raising cattle, baling hay, etc. How else could someone claim land that isn't theirs? Fences are not property lines, unless specifically stated in a deed, resulting from a written boundary line agreement between owners. Other than that, fences are built for one primary reason, to keep cattle in a specific area.

Feeders and blinds are not improvements. Something like that may only indicate that someone is hunting there illegally.

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3. You can put your fence anywhere you want on your own property.

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You sure can... but if you want to lose land to adverse possession, the surest way to do so is to fence it out.

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Everybody would have been officially informed this way.

Doing it the way they did it is shady.

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I agree with this.

However, it seems like Mr. Cabrera may have known that there was an issue regarding the property line, as indicated by him taking the initiative to call a few different places to find out about the purple markers along with his prior knowledge of the fence being moved. From a sentimental point of view, I can understand how he could keep hunting that area since his grandfather told him everything to the fence was their land. I would have the utmost respect for anything my grandfather told me about our family land, and I would fight like hell to dispute any claim otherwise, but I would do my own due diligence (survey/title records/etc) before getting into that fight. From a practical point of view, I would be hesitant to hunt an area where I knew there was a possible boundary dispute, meaning I would've read whatever was taped to the deer feeder and or continued to pursue my questioning about the purple markers until I found out what was going on. I'm not defending the kr. I'm just saying I think Mr. Cabrera knew more than he's leading everyone to believe.


Doc Haynworth:
If I was building a 1 mile fence I would make damn sure it was built in the right place. All of my due diligence would be completed before such an undertaking. If in the future it was shown to be 500 feet off, somebody's arse would be on the line. Conversely, if my neighbor built a fence that was 500 feet into his property, I wouldn't say, "Oh look...I just got an extra 165'ish yards of land...I guess I'll start farming it and making improvements to it..." IMO, that would be pretty shady. Especially if I had the boundary lines still marked.

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Continuously means 365 days of the year, not just during hunting season.

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Hmmm we can agree to disagree. The way I see it even if it were farm land and you work the land during season then leave it barren over the winter the adverse posession would still be deemed continuous.

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And what's with the squatter's rights bs??? If the property line was incorrectly marked, and it is corrected at some point, that doesn't mean that the person gets to keep land that's not theirs just because it's been 25 years. What kind of crap is that??

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You're not alone. Many lay persons have trouble with adverse possession. However, it is a well founded doctrine that really serves a good purposes.

Most importantly, it clears up title problems and boundary issues.

It is based on the ideas that land should be exploited for its highest and best use. It is also based on the notion that the owner of land should protect his land and oust trespassers.

Many people are confused about how adverse possession works. Many folks see it as an affirmative act of taking the land of innocent parties. However, when I explain it to my clients, I let them know that it is really a statute of limitations with respect to trespassing.

Pretty much everything in the law has a statute of limitations - I believe under the criminal law there are a few exceptions like murder that do not have SOL. The reasons for statutes of limitation are many, but the main reason is that we don't want cases litigated where the issues have gone stale and all the original parties have died.

Adverse possession is the statute of limitations against trespass. There are several adverse possession statutes. In essence, the more notorious and obvious the trespass, the shorter the time period (i.e. 3 years) that the non-trespasser has to bring a claim against the trespasser. The opposite is also true...very subtle trespass can take 25 years to run the SOL.



Oh, and Wildag might be correct. There are cases where showing up every so often can constitute continuous use. It is important to remember that these fact issues are for the finder of fact (jury or judge sitting in a bench trial) to determine based on testimony.

I wonder if the guys from Alice that were outlaw hunting on the King Ranch have an adverse possession claim?

They drove in one night to hunt and couldn't find their vehicle. They tried numerous nights after that but couldn't find it.

Someone found it in the 90's or so... a mesquite tree had grown up thru it.

Ought to have a chance....they parked their vehicle on the ranch for 50 years...

[This message has been edited by sunchaser (edited 3/20/2012 11:25a).]

Is there an old survey or title or something out there that has the creek as the property boundary? This was never stated in the article.

Sunchaser: Probably not. A court would probably find that they abandoned the vehicle.

May or may not be related, but I got a call from the King Ranch today asking for a quote to survey approx. 16 miles of their boundary for fencing purposes.

Granted I had an Israeli from Harvard teach me property law, so I don't know how accurate his representation of the Texas law is but the adverse possession claim in this case will depend on the shooter's mental state. The shooter would have had to know that the land wasn't his and meant to take it for an adverse possession claim to work. Real attorneys could probably say if that isn't the case.

I'll never buy a King Ranch Ford!

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queso1
posted 10:55a, 03/20/12

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And what's with the squatter's rights bs??? If the property line was incorrectly marked, and it is corrected at some point, that doesn't mean that the person gets to keep land that's not theirs just because it's been 25 years. What kind of crap is that??
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You're not alone. Many lay persons have trouble with adverse possession. However, it is a well founded doctrine that really serves a good purposes.

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"lay persons" Do you mean non-attorney? I don't have any trouble understanding what you and the other attorneys are discussing, the theory of adverse possession, and I mostly agree with your assessment as it pertains to the legal definition. The trouble I have with it is in practice. Another way to say it is, I don't agree with it. But then again, how does the saying go? "Possession is 9/10ths of the law."

Ling ranch has vp's. Sellouts

I didn't mean any offense to you when I said lay persons - if you took offense, I apologize. It's a term that describes non-lawyers? Attorneys think differently than non-attorneys. You learn very little law in law school, instead they teach you to think like a lawyer. The foregoing is not to imply attorneys think better or worse than others, just differently.

As for adverse possession. It's fair and it works. People who don't agree with the spirit of adverse possession probably are the same people who don't agree that the mineral estate should be the dominant estate over the surface or don't believe it's fair to be landlocked with no ingress or egress. But, those concepts are also founded in well reasoned logic and backed by hundreds of years of common law created by folks much smarter than any of us.

Like it or not, essentially everything has a statute of limitations. One cannot sit on their rights and then come back 20 years later and say "oh, now I'm going to defend my property."

The fact is that the family losing the farm from adverse possession is for the most part an urban legend. Sure, some people have probably been devastated by adverse possession over the years, but in the 99.99% of the instances it works, it's worth it. In most instances, it is a few acres to clear up boundary disputes (or an easement under prescriptive rights [essentially adverse possession of an easement])

Oh just admit it queso we we all know you're just a dick.

I try!

"I'll never buy a King Ranch Ford!"

Me either, I think they are stupidly expensive (couldn't afford one anyway even if I wanted one).

I was highly offended by your lay person comment queso, and I may never post on OB again because of it.





And by "Home" I mean, a place where I've been squatting for the past 25 years.

The main purpose of the adversed possession laws is not to allow someone to steal land, it has been set up to clear up title issues, which has been pretty successful in the past.

And just to clarify a little, a fence line, even if someone tried to claim land up to it, and the original monuments are still in place defining the ownership line, and both owners are aware of the monuments, I don't believe a court would rule adverse possession in that case.

If they did, it would open a can of worms that even the court system would not want to have.

I have never seen a single ranch where the fence is exactly on the property line and have yet to find a perfectly straight fence line. That doesn't mean that you give up any land or acquire additional land, just because the fence is not straight.

IMO, Adverse possession is a tool to keep people from buying land and just letting it sit, with no improvements, upkeep, etc. and expecting to use it primarily as an investment instead of a working piece of land.

Within a fenced ranchs a person can adverse possess as much land as they can get away with. Unfenced ranches, an adverse possesser can only claim up to 160 acres.

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I'll never buy a Ford!

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FIFY

/ducks

I vote for Cabela's edition

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IMO, Adverse possession is a tool to keep people from buying land and just letting it sit, with no improvements, upkeep, etc. and expecting to use it primarily as an investment instead of a working piece of land.

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WINNER!