In order to establish claim to disputed property on a boundary by acquiescence theory, Iowa law requires evidence that adjoining landowners recognize, acknowledge, and affirmatively treat a definite boundary line as the true boundary for a period of ten years or more. In the following case, the defendants were unable to offer proof of either a definitive boundary line or any mutual recognition the boundary was where they claimed. As a result, the court declined to adjust the boundary between the plaintiffs’ property and the defendants’.
This boundary dispute arose when the plaintiffs began clearing trees and building a fence on what they believed was the eastern border of the property they purchased in 2008. The defendants objected and claimed the plaintiffs were encroaching on the defendants’ property by 20 to 22 feet. The plaintiffs filed suit to quiet title in the disputed area. The defendants counter-claimed and asserted they were entitled to the disputed area under a boundary by acquiescence theory.
The matter went to trial. The trial court heard testimony from the previous landowners and farmers and ruled in favor of plaintiffs’ quiet title claim. As a result, the disputed portion was remained part of the plaintiffs’ property. The defendants appealed. On appeal, defendants claimed the trial court erred in failing to find the boundary was established by acquiescence for at least 10 years and title to the disputed portion should have been quieted in the defendants’ favor.
The appellate court disagreed. In reviewing the trial court’s findings of facts, the appellate court held that even though the defendants periodically placed junked machinery and items on the disputed portion most of the junk was stored under the established tree line- which the plaintiffs argued was the actual property line. Any junked equipment placed to the west of the line was pushed back over to the defendants’ property line by the individuals actively farming the property, so there was never any actual possession of the disputed portion by the defendants to justify altering the boundary.
The appellate court agreed there were two fatal flaws to defendants’ boundary by acquiescence theory: a failure to establish an actual physical boundary existed, such as a fence or wall, and a failure to establish any mutual recognition of the claimed physical boundary. The court agreed the facts failed to establish any definitive boundary existed affirmatively establishing the dividing line between the properties. The only barrier was an established tree line and remnants of an old wire fence within the tree line. Even more damaging to the defendants’ claim, however, was the defendants’ own action in building a fence five years before their claim of ownership. The fence was placed on the tree line rather than 20 feet past the tree line in the area now disputed. The court was confused as to why the fence would not have been built where the defendants claimed the boundary existed. Furthermore, the defendants failed to establish any evidence that the previous owner recognized that his farmland ended twenty feet to the west of the section line along the lots owned by the defendants as required to establish an acquiescence in the boundary claimed by the defendants. Based on substantial evidence of the trial court’s factual findings, the trial court’s opinion was affirmed quieting title in the plaintiffs’ favor. Griffin v. Tharp, No. 2-345/11-1792, 2012 Iowa App. LEXIS 621 (Iowa Ct. App. Aug. 8, 2012).